Who's Really the BOSS?

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Rachel Dillon: Welcome to Who's Really the Boss podcast. I'm Rachel Dillon, and along with my husband, Marcus Dillon, we share the joys and challenges of leading a $3 million accounting firm together. From team structure to growth strategies, we share our leadership successes and failures so you can avoid the mistakes we have made and grow a valuable accounting firm.

Rachel Dillon: Welcome back to another [00:00:30] episode of Who's Really the Boss podcast.

Marcus Dillon: Hey, thanks for having me back.

Rachel Dillon: Hey, we promised in a previous episode that we would talk through some of the things that we set up kind of in our life in Dillon Business Advisors to help us continue to progress on goals set at the beginning of the year. And so I think that's where we should go with our conversation today.

Marcus Dillon: All [00:01:00] right, let's do it. I think accountability. Um, if people are asking for stuff, then let's give it to them.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah, absolutely. And so, um, you know, I mentioned before that I feel like January it's not that it's easy, especially if you're starting to do something foreign, right. Whatever that means to you. But starting to do something, maybe it's physically painful, maybe it's mentally draining, maybe it's just so different than what you've always done. Um, [00:01:30] but in January, there's a lot of people doing some version of that. When we get past January, people aren't talking about that as much anymore. We get to Valentine's Day and we go out, you know, with dinner and candy, and then we get Easter in there with a bunch more candy and spring break. We have all these things that come up, and so it just makes it quite challenging to continue with that same mindset potentially, that you [00:02:00] had at the beginning of the year when it was fresh start, new year, new me to keep going and make it the long haul to the whole year, or maybe just through the end of the goal, like if it was something that would start and then had a specific end.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, I can definitely see where you're going with like people, you know, re-upping or trying things during January because the gym that we go to consistently all year long is a lot busier in January [00:02:30] or it has been so far, uh, this week, uh, than others previously. Right. And almost to the point where now it's impacting me, it's impacting us and what we can do in the gym because there's just too many people now and not enough equipment to go around. So I'll be glad when, uh, maybe quitters day happens or, uh, February and people choose to sleep in versus go to the gym because I can get my treadmill pre-workout [00:03:00] in like I'm used to versus like adding that on to the back of my workout and then feeling guilty and then turning a walking treadmill into a running treadmill, which is not probably good for my body long term. So if people could hurry up and, you know, get on with their resolution if they're going to keep it or not, that would be great.

Rachel Dillon: I always hope for the new faces that we see in the gym in the mornings. And sometimes, I mean, this is [00:03:30] honest. Some people, just at the beginning of the year, say, I'm going to try working out in the morning instead of the afternoon. So they do work out at that same place, just they change. They try to change their time of the day, but I really hope for every single one of them that they stay. Because back in January of 2010, I was that new face that, you know, it was like full of excitement. And I don't know, that was crazy. I had to get up at 430 in the morning to get there before my [00:04:00] teaching job and all of that, and so.

Marcus Dillon: And you, you got ready at the gym, which if there's anybody at.

Rachel Dillon: Yes. And it was not a nice gym. Um, like somebody might be envisioning. It was quite.

Marcus Dillon: Gross.

Rachel Dillon: Yes. It was not. It was not, um, the accommodations were not what I'm used to. And so, uh. Yeah, it was a lot. But I always am hopeful for those people that they will last the long haul, that they will stick with it and not give [00:04:30] up in a week or two. And then we can just work around and and I think it's good for you. You I feel like you're working harder now that you don't use the treadmill as your warm up, but are actually using it to kind of extend your workout. And I feel like you're working harder. So I think it's going to be good for you.

Marcus Dillon: Um, I'm glad someone thinks it's good for me. So, um, I'm going to start giving out hugs at the gym or, uh, you know, maybe business cards and make it real awkward so people will hopefully go to the gym at another time [00:05:00] or find a new gym. So that's my. That's what I'm going to try in a couple weeks if it doesn't get better.

Rachel Dillon: So if weird dudes start hugging me at the gym, I'm definitely changing gyms, FYI. Just so we're clear. So that plan might work.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Well, good. Well, good. But no, I think, you know, even if you look back to, like, our journey of growth and what a lot of our friends, um, you know, know of our story and how we, um, you know, made some changes in our business, but also made changes in our [00:05:30] life. So much of that overlapped with the accountability, the discipline that came along with. And if you're able to do hard things in business, you can probably go do hard things in life and vice versa. So really excited about this conversation and especially like the book Atomic Habits, um, that we'll talk about because, uh, that book's not that old and it is like it's become like a staple to so many personal development plans and been built [00:06:00] upon. And, uh, even people talk about atomic Habits is just a rip off of, uh, previous generations. Um, as far as you know, Zig Ziglar and, um, some of the other greats, if you will, Jim Rome and personal development. And so, uh, yeah, let's let's dig into atomic habits and how we were introduced to that and what it means to us.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So prior to reading Atomic Habits, and if you are listening [00:06:30] and have followed our story at all in 2016, I started with a nutrition coach, um, on a nutrition plan. And then quickly after Marcus joined me on that nutrition plan. And then shortly after that, we read the book Atomic Habits. All of this was setting kind of into motion different habits and routines and the things that we set up each day. So ours really kind of coincided [00:07:00] with the transformation of the business, starting in about 2016, to the firm that it is now from a primarily tax focused or tax heavy practice into a Cass focused, primarily Cass, um, firm. And so these were happening at the same time. But what the book Atomic Habits did was really put into words [00:07:30] and really put into a tangible way to show and describe what we had been doing with Amy McCarty, our, um, coach for the business, and with David Schneider, our coach for nutrition at the same time. So while we didn't read our story, is not that not that we read Atomic Habits and then we had these major. Personal life and business transformations. But ours were [00:08:00] that we had those transformations. Read this book and then realized, wait a second. Yes, that's exactly what we were doing. With the help and accountability and guidance of our coaches and decisions that we were making ourselves, so that we could then put it into practice in kind of any new area that we wanted to change or improve or continue to see progress. And so really, there were three there were three principles from atomic habits [00:08:30] that I think that we really put into place. We had been doing and then took these and continued to put them in other places to continue to grow and transform areas of our life.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. I think, uh, we, we started, um, with Excess too. I think we can point to that, right. Like excess being health wise, like maybe that's overweight. Uh, too much cholesterol isn't a good thing. You know, so, like, [00:09:00] excess wasn't great. Corresponding to the business, like excess clients. Like. Right. We had we were thankful because we had revenue. Enough revenue to experiment. Right. We weren't like, trying to figure it out and survive at the same time. And I think that could be said of like, our health journey too, right? Like it was a lot easier to remove excess than to build from nothing. Um, it's it's [00:09:30] very hard to build muscle when you have nothing to build upon. And it's the same thing with business. And that's why when we look back to 2016 and like even further background, in 2016, we actually merged in and acquired my mentor's practice. And so Tom's practice was merged in into 2016. And that's what actually caused us to look up and say, we have way too many clients. We have far more excess, right? Clients [00:10:00] being the main thing than we know what to do with. So we didn't know how to serve those clients. We knew what we probably wanted to do within our industry moving forward. So it allowed that excess allowed for experimentation, which was great. Like, if you're not starting with excess, like it may be a little bit different of a path for you because you're building at the same time.

Marcus Dillon: But for us, it was a lot easier to make cuts at the business and both personally. Right. Like we had a [00:10:30] full pantry, we had a full refrigerator. Just don't eat that or don't buy that or throw that away. Like that was a lot easier to do than having a barebones refrigerator and then just having to go like, start from zero and start doing things like, you know, making money to go be able to afford food or go, you know, do different things to that would have been a much different, um, road. And I'm saying all this from like a place of privilege, I realize [00:11:00] that. Um, but that's our story. Like, I think seeing the discipline from excess to, you know, intention is very important whenever you look back and what something like Atomic Habits did for us. And even like when you look back to the specific example of, like the nutrition coaches that we worked with at stronger, you, and I'll let you kind of tell a little bit of that story, because that was the same time as Atomic Habits and our friend Mike Dola, who actually started stronger. [00:11:30] You interviewed the, you know, interviewed Atomic Habits, right? When he was coming out. And just it was kind of that same kick off in 2016. So you want to give a little bit background on Mike and David and Derek and you know all the fun stuff that is stronger you.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And so yeah, that's a good point to Marcus that you are still working with an accountability partner on the nutrition and fitness side as well with [00:12:00] Derek. And so there have been a lot of very influential people who have helped us along the way. And I think it's always important that we point that out. You and I did not do this by ourselves. Our team, our coaches and mentors and friends have been definitely integral to the success of us personally, individually and at the business level. And so with Stronger You, that [00:12:30] was the name of the company that we signed up with. But they were helping people kind of track their nutrition. So what they did was they just broke down people's nutrition goals into Smaller pieces of targets that you needed to hit every single day. Not just a calorie standpoint, but actually from like a protein, carbs and fats standpoint. And then also [00:13:00] wanted to look at other areas that were really important, like water and sleep and exercise. And so really looking at the person as a whole and helping to shape that, but what their main goal was not to do was to help you lose 10 pounds in two days or help you lose 20 pounds in a week. The end result of the number of pounds lost [00:13:30] was not really their goal. The, um, making something a habit and increasing the your consistency in doing what you say you want to do Is really what the goal or the focus of that program was. So no matter what reason you came in for into that, the really the goal was really about helping change the areas that, you know, you needed [00:14:00] to change, but maybe didn't know how to put it into words through kind of habit change and consistency.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And so when we met, uh, Mike and the team over at stronger, you. And it had to be 2016. Um, correct. Yeah.

Rachel Dillon: October 2016. Yeah.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. Uh. Funny story. Rachel started stronger. You. Because she was mad at me. Because I bought a truck.

Rachel Dillon: And this is a great story. I'm glad you put this in.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And that, [00:14:30] like, was the final piece of motivation for her taking that step and doing that for herself. Uh, which was was great. Like, you know, it started off a journey in her life and my life. And so. Yeah, um, maybe I Maybe I should go buy a truck more often. Without telling her so.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. So all of that. I think for someone who's starting out and isn't as familiar with or would just like the 2025 hack [00:15:00] of, how do I make this easier? How do I make setting up and working on staying consistent with my goals and my priorities? How do I make it easier? I think Atomic Habits did a really good job. So author James Clear. If you haven't read it yet, this is a book that we've given out multiple times at our events because we believe in it so strongly. The principles that are included here really are helpful for behavior [00:15:30] change. It's not the you have to drink, you know, 100oz of water a day and all of your problems are solved. It's really the how to for anything in life that you want to do that the principles can be applied across any area of your life. Um, and pertaining to any goal that you're trying to do. So three that stood out for us and that we continue to implement and to use. Um, the first [00:16:00] one would be one thing that he says is to make it obvious and make it easy. And so some of the ways that we do that within the business, and I'll give one. And then Marcus, you can give some as well. Um, if you're, if you're thinking of ones that I'm not saying, um, but make it obvious and make it easy for us. This was kind of our annual DBA calendar. Make it obvious, put recurring things or things that you [00:16:30] know are coming. Put it on the calendar for everyone to see both team members yourself, and also for clients to see and to And to know.

Rachel Dillon: So if it's recurring, that means if it's we meet with clients quarterly, then we put the window on the calendar. Uh, this is when invites go out, and this is the window of when those meetings are going to happen. Yes. Some months or some times that that happens are busier than others. [00:17:00] But also, you know, to hold space for some meetings that could happen during that time. Um, and so that's really it's like what gets measured, gets managed and what gets scheduled actually will is more likely to happen or actually happens. So things like, um, scorecards, we do quarterly scorecards for our team members. That's a recurring calendar event that has the link to complete the scorecards. [00:17:30] That's just there during the scorecard window every quarter. Our review meetings, we try to put those on the calendar, I say try. Um, I don't know that they're on there for there for December of 2025 yet, but we put those on the calendar at the beginning of the year, and we always know when that window is going to be. And so we make an event for that to happen every single year. We had weekly check ins with team members that we did, and that was an automatic posting that went up in teams [00:18:00] that members filled out electronically. So it wasn't something that we were trying to remember trying to fit in or squeeze into little spaces that might be left over in the calendar. These are all things that we put on the calendar before the year even starts, so that nothing gets scheduled over it. It doesn't get forgotten or missed.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, I think so much of this first principle of make it obvious, make it easy relates to scheduling for me. [00:18:30] And like the nature of our business. So it's not always quote unquote easy, but make it obvious. Put boundaries or guardrails in place. Um, for me, I, I like my mornings. I like my morning routine. I do not like rushing to my laptop or my office in order to meet somebody for an 8:00 meeting. And so what I've set out to do in that and not enjoying that, I block my calendar [00:19:00] to where no one can actually schedule with my with me until 10 a.m., right? So 930 10 a.m. is when I'm coming out of the fog of what my morning looks like. And, um, that's, you know, that's a good time for me to start meeting with people and seeing how things are going and going about the day, and that's internally and externally. So maybe a client, uh, needing some time as well. So instead of just having that available to anybody to plop a time down and control [00:19:30] my calendar, I'd much rather put guardrails or boundaries in place to to make that make sense. It. The other thing that comes up quite a bit in our industry, and especially if you're a tax deadline heavy, is missing out on vacations in spring break is one that comes up because it's right in line with, you know, a busy time of year for most accountants, which is tax season. So spring break, if you have children, is important. Um, you know, they're out of school. [00:20:00] Maybe you don't take them on vacation, but they're still out of school, right? So you have to figure out what to do with them.

Marcus Dillon: And this is speaking from experience, like when you and I both worked in the business and the girls would get out of school and we're like, what do we do with them for a week? Like, who do we send them to? And so life shouldn't drive, you know? Um, life should drive some of the stuff in business, not the other way around. So what we would do is like we set a goal to have spring break really be a thing within the Dylan household and at DBA. So [00:20:30] we started scheduling being out of the office that week regardless if we were traveling or going on going on vacation and are just spending time with the girls kind of loosely, uh, being around and being connected. I think that's how we started, and we made it obvious, like, we want this to be a thing in our family so nobody can meet with us that week. Like, we're just going to start blocking it out and start putting things in place. So that is a reality. And, um, [00:21:00] you know, if you don't do that and then somebody happens to book on your calendar and then you're torn, it's less likely that you would actually follow through with, you know, the goal or the plans that you set. So I think for me, like this one, make it obvious, make it easy. Scheduling is a no brainer when I think about it. There's other there's other. Make it obvious, make it easy things. But, um, I probably hit the nail on the head with most people's struggles come down to their schedule.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And [00:21:30] I think on the make it easy. So you mentioned the girls and spending time with them during spring break, Arguably which is our busiest time of the year. Um, whether we were tax heavy or now CAS, it's still there is just more work in the office during that time of March. Um, for us. And so we made it easy by making the first year only Friday, Saturday, Sunday the next year we did Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and [00:22:00] then after that we started doing the full week. And so again, the business was going under different transformations during that time. By the time we were out the full week, we definitely had less volume of tax only work. Um, but in the beginning, when we still had the same volume of tax work, we made it easy by starting smaller and then gradually getting bigger and then again, of course, planning for it, putting it on the calendar so that nothing [00:22:30] could come up on top of it. Um, that's really good. All right. Let's move on. So second principle that we continue to implement from atomic habits is environment design. So your environment making the environment conducive to whatever you're trying to achieve. Um for me the first thing that comes up is like um literal on environment design in how we've [00:23:00] structured our firm to be remote in order to help us to continue to grow. So really that that was kind of the thing for these principles was that all of these are helping us to grow the firm. And in those categories that we talked about before, the growth of clients and team members. Um, and also the growth in providing like development opportunities. So using that term growth in different ways, [00:23:30] but the environment design of setting up the firm to be a remote firm. When it started, it was definitely an in-person physical location firm.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And so even with that environment design, um, maybe your brick and mortar and you're moving to hybrid or moving to remote. The first step is like, if you're starting to embrace some of those options, you have to move to a remote first, um, [00:24:00] kind of policy across the board. Right. So even when we knew that this was a, you know, a hopefully a thought at DBA back in the day, even before Covid really gave us that opportunity to to go full remote, we knew that we had to have a system in place so that we could host meetings that weren't physically present in that in-person environment, whether it was with a team member or with a client. And then it's getting into the habit of, okay, [00:24:30] we're going to be doing this long term, but everybody's still in this office except for this one person, right? And so instead of making it awkward on that one person, go ahead and make it awkward on the whole team. Right. Everybody meet in your offices on camera. Don't isolate that one person any more than necessary. You know, go ahead and start embracing that now. That was the small steps that we started to take. And then obviously, uh, once we tested some things [00:25:00] and once we had the environment built out, then it was, you know, off to the races as far as, like the freedom and the flexibility that we, we could see. Um, the other environment design that I think about a lot of times is just your physical space where you work, right. And so kind of latching back onto that going, remote going hybrid, um, during those, those early days, a lot of people were just working from their desk or from their, um, they were making [00:25:30] their dining room table their desk right in the middle of all the kids, in the middle of all the family happenings that happen throughout a household throughout the day.

Marcus Dillon: So actually spending money on environmental design for our business was a good call. Right. So we would allow team members to take equipment home. It wasn't being used at the office anymore. So like if you needed monitors, if you needed keyboards or whatever. And then the next step was, okay, do you need a desk? Do you need a chair? Do you need like, [00:26:00] uh, something to be able to see better, uh, and raise your monitor? So all of that, it was designing the environment for success, because in that sense, we knew that this was going to be a long term solution of like giving people that flexibility that they needed during that time. Now it's the flexibility that they want because they want to stay remote or they want to stay hybrid. So that was the environmental design that we did back in the day. Now Obviously [00:26:30] that leads to success, because if someone would have stayed parked on their dining room table for five years working off a single laptop screen, they would be less efficient, less, you know, effective, um, than actually us putting budget and us okaying, you know, um, setting out a design and kind of really encouraging people to spend some time, spend some money where needed [00:27:00] to make the environment around them a place where they can, you know, thrive.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And I think originally, like way back when we were thinking about working remotely, um, you know, I was like, digging in my heels and a few of our other part time team members were, like, digging in their heels that they didn't want to do that. Uh, we really had to think about communication and how to make it easy. So where we would typically walk to someone's desk and ask [00:27:30] a question or tell them something you know, whatever it might be. Or a client would just randomly stop by and drop off a document or ask to pick something up. We really had to consider what are we going to use for that? What is the solution to that? And so we landed on teams. Obviously there's all kinds of things like Slack and Zoom and a whole host of other solutions. But within the team, we had to get comfortable and we actually started [00:28:00] using it before we went remote. We started using slack way back when, um, we were all still in office. And so we started solving for that problem before we even made the transition to get people comfortable with direct messaging and certain other things that were more, um, digital and online versus in person. Same with clients. We started that [00:28:30] process of them uploading documents way before we ever went remote and got them comfortable. So that way when we did make that transition, there was less change happening all at one time. So environment design was really important. Also starting that in I would say like small phases before we were ready to completely transition really helped that, um, to go smoothly and be accepted and then [00:29:00] adopted like helped people adapt to that much easier. Time blocking I would throw in there also an environment design, just meaning of your day that you're actually designing and designating times of day for specific types of work and even specific types of personal things. So if that's like a morning routine or a shutdown routine or things like that, but definitely putting specific markers [00:29:30] in your calendar and using the time each day with intention.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. So those stuck with us, right. The environmental design. And then you will still have people that want to go outside of your ideal environment. Right. Like that is going to be you're not going to be able to serve everybody. You're not going to be able to create a great place for every potential team member. And that's okay. Like there's other options [00:30:00] for those clients to be served. Other great firms that do want a physical presence. In this example, if a team member only can think through what it looks like to physically go to an office every day, there are firms that do that. It just wasn't DBA. And that's the same. Like if there's something like that in in a listeners firm or listeners business hold true to that, you don't have to change your whole design just for that one person. And going [00:30:30] back to like that excess and making cuts, um, you know, part of it was evaluating who needed this other environment from a client perspective and from a team member perspective. And if we were going to define our ideal state as this environment, let's just say remote, then the people that needed something other than remote weren't ideal. And then being able to be okay, right, [00:31:00] that I'm going to make this cut, I'm going to free this client back into the world. I'm going to free this team member to go find their next chapter somewhere else. That's just something you live with and be okay with. And so I think environmental design was very important for us. And it continues to be important because we like the The environment we've set up. And even as we look at other opportunities and what that means to go into other markets, [00:31:30] we're not changing. We're not going to go do something completely drastic and go physically present in one market and not DBA as a whole. Like that wouldn't make sense. So that's something that concept, that principle out of Atomic habits continues even eight, nine years after the fact, to be a really important one at DBA and personally.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah, that's really good. Okay. Third principle there are more than three principles in atomic habits. [00:32:00] These are just three that we picked out, three that we continued to use over and over again. And that easily stand out when I think back to kind of our journey and our story of success, of where we are today. But the third principle is identity based habits. So this goes along the lines. We talked a lot about goals and breaking those down into kind of daily or weekly tasks or habits that you do. And what it [00:32:30] really does is it makes you think about those things that you're saying you want to do or see, and then asking you to hold that up to the values that you have and the person that you want to become. So really measuring those things. So instead of just saying a blanket of like, I want to lose 20 pounds for the sake of losing 20 pounds. It's really looking at the why behind [00:33:00] it and what values that you hold that make this important to you. Because for sure, if you're trying to do something that holds no value and is not important to you, that's likely not going to be something that sticks long term. No matter what hack or tip or trick you're given or try to implement. So identity based habits has been a really big one for us. Um, to me, that just [00:33:30] reminds me of how every objective and goal that's set within Dillon Business Advisors. Really, every decision that's made is really brought back up against our vision, mission and values. So we hold each decision, each goal, each objective that we are wanting to do or try against. Does it align with [00:34:00] our vision, mission and values?

Marcus Dillon: Yeah. And so vision mission and values is important. Like we obviously have that as our as our screensaver or backdrop on all of our DBA machines. Just so it's constantly in front of somebody. And even though you don't really learn by osmosis, at least it's there. Um, so, uh, and then the same thing personally. Right. Like, what do you believe in personally? Like, what is your mission, vision and values personally? Hopefully that is not so [00:34:30] different from like if you own the business, you're going to have that bleed over into like both sides, right? So like the DBA mission, vision and values is very similar to like what we've set our life to be as far as if we were to have a personal mission, vision and values individually. Like it shouldn't be that different. And that just goes back to like that identity in our world. Right. And I know a lot of listeners who run firms will agree, like, you are the face of the business [00:35:00] or you are the business or such a big part of the business, it's hard to turn it off and like, go be somebody else other than that business owner really in life, right? So I think we've just, you know, the culture that we're in, um, so much of your identity is the business that you run or that you're a part of. Um, especially if, like, you're a leader and maybe not an owner. People ask you, hey, what do you do? It's usually the first [00:35:30] or second question that's asked at a party. And so because that identity is so close to like your occupation, those two have to align and have to kind of give you energy and give you, uh, you know, just good growth individually.

Marcus Dillon: And so I think once you've aligned those, some of this really starts to fall into place. And when those things aren't in alignment, it's usually a lot easier to see that the stress, to see [00:36:00] why they're not in alignment or the results of them not being in alignment. So, um, you know, if if your result, if your goal is to be healthy and you don't eat that way, or you don't have some type of physical exercise incorporate it into your day, and you just start to go down a path where that's not a priority. You have to like, is that truly your identity? Is that what you want or is that something [00:36:30] like that you need accountability or discipline with if you do really want that to be your identity? So I think asking yourself like the hard questions of, hey, is this really what we want? So, you know, I think back to like even our vision statement, you know, if we're trying to transform, you know, let's say accounting, so to speak, do we stay in our bubble, like, do we continue to exist within what we know to be comfortable, or are we called to go outside [00:37:00] of that comfort because it aligns with the vision that we've set out as a team and agreed upon? So those are all the pieces that, you know, I keep coming back to and that should align with, you know, your greater being, so to so to speak, of everything that has been poured into you and all the knowledge and experience that you have that's led to this point. It shouldn't be so drastic of a change that it's, you know, it's truly [00:37:30] fractured at the end of the day.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. And I'll give a real example, um, from kind of the end of 2024 through now where we are as far as kind of those identity based habits and really thinking about, like, if you were to put that in like a sentence starter, a person who is transparent with their team would do this. So we started talking about [00:38:00] our goals, like the end of Q3, beginning of Q4 to set up for the new year. And when we were talking about that, we were talking about kind of the organic growth number of new clients we wanted to see in 2025. And we also have been talking a lot about opportunities of inorganic growth of, you know, looking outside of just one client at a time, but potentially acquiring a firm or something [00:38:30] of that nature, exploring what would that look like for us? And so one of our values is transparency. And so we were talking about that as a leadership team. And then as we were writing out our goals for growth, we just had put on there 15 new clients. And looking at the potential of inorganic growth through like acquisition of a firm wasn't originally included. [00:39:00] And so we had to start thinking about a firm who is transparent, leaders who are transparent. Don't tell the team, you know, in December that we're you know, our goal is to grow by 15 clients. If really there's another thought or potential or desire to grow by much potentially more than that. Now, that's not saying it's going to happen. An opportunity might not come along. And it would be [00:39:30] easy to say, well, we're not going to say anything until we're sure that that's going to happen because we don't know how the team would react. We don't know if it would be positive or negative, if people if that would scare people or they'd be excited about the opportunity.

Rachel Dillon: Um, but what we did was we went ahead and put that in our goals that we are exploring opportunities, not that we have a deadline or a date of when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen, but that we will continue to look at what opportunities are available in the market [00:40:00] and share that with our team. And we were able to give them the opportunity to give feedback on what are their thoughts and ask questions before it ever even happens. And I think the the the feedback we received from the team after we shared that with them. Again, you know, we're still always like hesitant of we don't know how they're going to hear that or how they're going to internalize that or what their opinions will be. Um, but [00:40:30] the feedback we got was good. People were just excited that we shared that we trust them enough to share what possibilities are, what the potential is, and that they're in the know. And it's not a surprise because had we only put 15, they would have been caught completely off guard when that opportunity did come to fruition. If it does. So I think that was a good lesson, especially for me, who likes to be like, pretty sure about things before [00:41:00] I take the risk or take the chance on doing it or sharing something. Um, don't want to rock the boat if you don't need to, but that was something. Just another lesson learned and another vote for if you are doing things, making decisions, creating habits that align with values, then the people who have committed to those values are going to be okay with it.

Marcus Dillon: Yeah, and I think a lot of the people that we've surrounded ourselves with in life [00:41:30] and in business have very similar values, and they find comfort in that. So I think the transparency piece that we value. Right. It allowed them to give feedback. It allowed them to be brought into that journey and even help. Right. Like, oh, there may be an opportunity here, or we could do this before that happens. And that way we're better positioned. So you're inviting more in? Um, I would say like the opposite of not [00:42:00] being transparent and holding things close to the chest. There is a time to to do that, but it's usually not going to end well if you do that for too long or too many times. Um, you know where it doesn't make sense. So there's a time and a place for, uh, keeping things, you know, obviously, um, between leaders or between owners. But the sooner you can get that out, uh, and invite [00:42:30] other people into, uh, that you've hired those people in this sense, um, for a reason. And they are. Or they add a lot of value to, to the conversation. So so that's a great example of, of value. So I think, you know, we've kind of recap where atomic habits, there's a reason it's done so well. Right. You know it's there's a reason it's so good. And even if it is rewriting things that maybe have been [00:43:00] true in previous generations, but writing it to our generation or the generation that of readers that he has now, um, great. You know, I think one of those of those things where people are better for it, and the three principles just recapping those that have, you know, were instrumental to us and continue to be our the first principle, make it obvious, make it easy. The second environmental design. And then number three identity based habits. [00:43:30] So anything else to add on atomic habits or as we close up, you know, just that you want to leave the listeners with.

Rachel Dillon: I think it's a great book. I think it's something to help you. Maybe you find maybe you've already read the book before or something similar, but it's just a good perspective and definitely a good reminder to help you kind of reset. Um, maybe here in the beginning of the year, not not January, but, you know, at the beginning [00:44:00] to help you just get a handle on what you're intending to do this year and then able to make that a reality. So we're not sponsored by or get any credit for mentioning atomic habits. It just really has been, um, kind of pivotal and something that our team I know, I think Leslie said she usually rereads it at the beginning of every year. Um, so that other other people that we know also feel like it's been really beneficial, um, to their growth as well.

Marcus Dillon: Well, [00:44:30] good. Well, thanks for leading the conversation. And, uh, you know, bringing this up as a topic, I think others will be better for it.

Rachel Dillon: Yeah. Awesome. See you on the next.

Marcus Dillon: Thanks so much.

Rachel Dillon: Thanks for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed the conversation and want to learn more, be sure to visit collective CPA. You can schedule a meeting directly with me, Rachel by clicking on the Contact Us page. Be sure to subscribe, like, and [00:45:00] share so you don't miss any future episodes. We look forward to connecting with you soon!