Concept to Cash

Get into a positive cash flow position as fast as you can. In this episode of the Talent Empowerment Podcast, Jim Downes, CEO of Blueprint CFO, dives into the world of accounting and makes sure we remember to pay attention to the numbers to be more successful.

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📌TALKING POINTS

(1:10) Where do companies go astray when they're thinking about financials?

(3:43) Why focus on labor productivity

(7:58) Accounting vs. finance vs. taxes vs. bookkeeping

(12:16) When should CEOs look at the numbers?

(28:55) Making accounting relevant

🌟ABOUT JIM DOWNES

Jim Downes is the Founder of Blueprint CFO, a future-focused accounting & CFO services firm based in Southern California. Jim has served business owners and management teams for over twenty years as a veteran outsourced Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and financial advisor. A forward-looking strategist, Jim’s unremitting passion for working with business owners led him to open Blueprint CFO in 2019. At Blueprint CFO, Jim and his team leverage data to look to the future and help clients achieve their profitability goals. Jim was a nominee for the 2022 Orange County Business Journal CFO of the Year Awards.

🔗CONNECT WITH JIM

• Website: www.blueprintcfo.com/ 
• LinkedIn (Blueprint CFO): www.linkedin.com/company/blueprintcfo/  
• LinkedIn (Jim Downes): www.linkedin.com/in/6criticalfunctions/  
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/blueprintcfo/ 
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/blueprintcfo/

🔗CONNECT WITH TOM

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🎙️ABOUT THE PODCAST

Every Thursday on the Talent Empowerment Podcast, Tom Finn, the dynamic Co-Founder and CEO of LeggUP, ventures into the minds of trailblazing CEOs, HR executives, and talent development savants from various industries to dive deep into their career paths, dissect their strategies for growing people-first culture in their organizations, and uncover how they’re driving talent innovation.

Tom Finn:

Welcome, welcome to the Talent Empowerment Podcast. We're here to help you love your job. We unpack the tools and tactics of successful humans to guide you towards your own career empowerment. I am your host, Tom Thin, and on the show today we have Jim Downs. Jim, welcome to the podcast.

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Jim Downes:

Thank you for having me, Tom. Looking forward to it.

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Tom Finn:

Well, let me take a moment, introduce you to Jim. He is the founder of Blueprint CFO. It's a future focused accounting and CFO services firm based in beautiful Southern California. Jim has served business owners and management teams for over 20 years as a veteran, outsourced CFO and financial advisor. He is a forward looking strategist. He has a passion for working with business owners that led him to open up Blueprint CFO in 2019. where Jim and his team leverage data, good old fashioned data, to look to the future and help clients achieve their profitability goals. All right, let's start here, my friend. Where do companies go astray when they're thinking about financials?

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Jim Downes:

Typically, and I hate to say that word typically, but my experience is working with entrepreneurs that they don't use their financials to run their business. Especially in the lower middle market, the financials are used to file their tax returns at the end of the year. But during the year, they may get their monthly financial statements and look to see, was there a profit? How much cash do I have? But they don't really. dig into the details of the data that is telling them what's working and what's not working in their business. And so that is one of the reasons why we, our mission at Blueprint CFO is to make the entrepreneur pay attention to what the data is saying is going on in their business that they need to take action about.

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Tom Finn:

Okay, that's fair. So what are some of the details that we should be focused on as entrepreneurs?

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Jim Downes:

Uh, so in, there's a, there's a couple of things that come to mind when you ask that question, one is sales and marketing. So typically, uh, clients are spending X amount of money every month on sales and marketing. And some of it, you know, you've heard the old adage, you know, I, I know half of my marketing is working. I just don't know which half. So, but there's a ways to dig into, you know, how many leads are you getting through Google clicks? How many leads are you getting through your website? How many leads are you getting through your referral network? And identify where you should be putting your emphasis. I was with a client yesterday as an example, they're spending $75,000 a month on sales and marketing and they, and it's not a big company, but they, and they have no idea where they're, they don't have any kind of data that says where the leads are coming from with respect to all the things that they're doing. They're doing direct mail. They're doing email marketing. They're doing pay per click. but that nobody is actually taking a look at that data to say, you know, how can we spend that $75,000? Do we need to spend, first of all, do we need to spend $75,000 a month? Or secondly, you know, if we are going to spend that much, how can we spend it better and smarter?

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, look, 75 grand a month is a monster sales and marketing budget. I would hope that if somebody is spending that kind of dough, that they are pretty acute in terms of the data that they're looking at, and they understand where their customers are coming from. But I think for most of us, Jim, it's the same old problem, right? It doesn't matter if you're spending $750 a month or $75,000 a month, you need to understand where the business is coming from. All right, that's fair. Sales and marketing, number one. What else should business owners be looking for?

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Jim Downes:

I think another one that people just kind of forget about is labor productivity. So in most companies, labor, you know, payroll is the biggest expense. You're people. And over time, you're spending X amount of money on wages. You want to generate more revenue from those wages. you know, what I call labor productivity. So how much, how many revenue dollars are you generating per labor dollar? And again, it's a, it's a very simple metric that nobody pays any attention to. And they keep adding people to their company and not paying attention to the fact that their revenue per labor dollar is going down and not up. You know, we want to see that labor. We want to see, if we're going to spend money on labor, we want to see an increase in the revenue that's generated from the labor dollar. Typically, nobody's paying attention to that.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, so let's break this down a little bit because I think what you're saying is super important. So the title of this is labor productivity. How does one come up with the labor productivity formula in this case? What are the basics?

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Jim Downes:

Well, I mean, a very simple way to do it is take your total payroll and divide by your revenue. Um, more sophisticated, excuse me, sophisticated ways to do it is, is if you have a manufacturing company and you have certain people out in the plant floor manufacturing products, you know, what, how many dollars per revenue are those people generating through their manufacturing, uh, work? So each, each client's different, Tom. So, you know, there's, there's not a way to say this is the way you should do it for your company. But in. In general, you want to be paying attention to that. You know, it goes back to, um, the, what, what most entrepreneurs get at the end of the month is a balance sheet and income statement and that's it. And there's no other analytics that they get that tells them what's going on in the business. And you, that, that is not sufficient to give you the data you really need to know, you know, how you're doing. And so when we work with a client, we give them a monthly financial package. It's about 10 pages long. At the very back is the balance sheet and income statement. But in the beginning are all these charts and graphs that are showing these kind of metrics that they typically aren't paying attention to because number one, you're getting a financial statement just for the month of July, for example. But how does July compare to June? And how does July compare to May? And what is the trend that's going on in the data? that you're maybe not paying attention to because you're just looking at one month. So there's just, um, a whole plethora of things, you know, I'm just touching the surface of, of the data that's, that people should be looking at when they're running their business and each, each company has a unique, has a unique set of data and that's what the CFO should be helping the client identify is, you know, for your kind of company, an e-commerce company is going to have a different set of data than a software as a service company. or as a professional service company, or as a contractor, a construction contractor. Each type of business has a different set of key things that they should be watching every month. And that's one of the things that the CFO brings to the table. I've worked personally, I've worked with over 200 companies and my career as a fractional CFO, so I've seen a lot of different industries. And if we added up our six CFOs and all the companies that we've worked with is probably 400 companies. So, you know. By having that kind of experience, it goes way beyond accounting. It's really where do companies go awry and how can we make sure that our client does well and doesn't not make the mistakes that we've seen other companies make.

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Tom Finn:

Yes, you brought up accounting. So help those that are not financial wizards, figure out this whole map, accounting versus finance versus tax versus bookkeeping. How does this all come together? What should we be thinking about?

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Jim Downes:

Um, so the accounting is important. There's in my mind, there's three things that are going on in every business that need to be paid attention to. One is sales and marketing. Secondly is operations and third is finance and accounting. But typically clients are very focused on sales and marketing operations, but not so much on finance and accounting. When we get engaged with a client that is interested in potentially getting a CFO involved with their business, they really have no idea what that even is. And a lot of times the client thinks the CFO is like a super accountant. And they are, they're an expert accountant, but that's just the starting point. You have to have great accounting to know how you did in a particular month. And if you're not matching your revenues and expenses correctly, you're gonna look like you made money one month and lost money the next month and made money the next month. And when you go to get a loan from the bank, they're like, well, you know, I don't know if this company makes money or not and whether I should make a loan or not. So the CFO number one is responsible to make sure the accounting is accurate and timely. So that means you're getting your financial statements by the 10th to the 15th of the month, every month for the prior month, but then be going beyond that to dig into the data and bring the data to the entrepreneur that shows them, you know, things that are going on that maybe they're not aware of because they're not digging into the details.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I think the details are super important when we're thinking about the financials. You gotta know your nums, right? I mean, you gotta know the numbers. You've gotta be ready to figure out which way to point your company, which direction to point your company in. So how do we figure out if we're not making money yet? Let's say we're early stage. Let's say we're in the first couple of years. We're spending more money on sales and marketing, more money on operations, and we're actually in a negative position. a negative monthly cash position. How do you help organizations figure out how to get out of that?

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Jim Downes:

So at one point in my career, I was the CFO of Internet Startup that was based in Santa Monica. And I was meeting with venture capital firms all around California to get funding. And I'll never forget, a man told me once, Jim, it's all about concept to cash. And I'm like, what does that mean? He goes, well, you have a good idea. but until it's generating positive cash, it's the faster you can get from your idea to generating positive cash is the trick. And so if a company is investing in building a future, by launching a new product or service, they need to be very careful to keep that in mind in terms of getting the positive cash as fast as possible. So that might mean, we've had clients that want to launch new technologies, for an example. And there's no revenue that's going to be generated from that technology till it's completed. But in the meantime, maybe they can be doing consulting to supplement the cost of the labor so that at least they have some money coming in and they can get to a positive cash flow faster than just spending all their time doing development and burning cash along the way and having to rely on the good faith of investors. that they're going to get there someday and that the customers are going to buy that technology. So that's tricky. I've been there myself.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I love this idea.

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Jim Downes:

A good financial person sitting next to the entrepreneur is super helpful in terms of helping them manage their cash and assure investors that the financials that they're being given are accurate and that there's somebody watching over the money. So Even at a company that's in startup mode and burning cash, typically, there's a lot of benefits to having a CFO involved.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, I love the idea of concept to cash. Makes a lot of sense to those of us that have started business, that you have to get into a positive cash flow position as quickly as you can. When you think about looking at the numbers and trying to understand what's going on in your business, how often do you recommend CEOs, leadership teams, actually look at the numbers? Is it monthly or is there some other rhythm?

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Jim Downes:

Well, monthly is a minimum, you know, because a whole month is a long time, in my opinion. But we provide our clients with weekly scorecards, which show them data that comes not only from the accounting system, but from their CRM or their operating, their ERP, their inventory management system that tells them every week, you know, what's going on in the business and whether they're going to hit their goals for the month. So a lot of times clients... don't know how they did for the month until everything is recorded at the end of the month. And many times a lot of the activity that gets you to your goals occurs in the last week of the month. I've seen that many times. So having a weekly report that shows how you're doing and whether you're on track to achieve your goals or not are super important. And it can all be, you know, I hate to use the word AI, but It all can be automated because we can set up a bot in effect to create a scorecard that is sent out every Monday morning to the client that shows how they're doing it, collecting the receivables, how many hours are being generated by the, you know, the operation team that, you know, what the labor costs is going to be for the month, yada, yada. There's just all kinds of things that they can get very easily every week. And that's been very popular with our clients. not just relying on the monthly financial but getting some kind of weekly report.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, look, I love how proactive that is. I think that's really what makes this sound interesting because as somebody that started companies, I run a multi-million dollar company called Leg Up, and I get my financials on the 13th day of the following month, and then I look back and go, oh, that's what happened in July, or that's what happened in September, right? And I just have to be reactive at that point to say, oh, we spent more money than I expected, or we didn't spend more money. or we were profitable by a different margin this month. And it's just kind of a tough way to operate, to be honest with you, because you're always looking in a rear view mirror, right, going, oh, what happened? Now let's plan for the future. So is it the weekly scorecard that gets you out of that rut, or is there some other behavior, Jim, that we should be doing as business owners?

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Jim Downes:

Well, let me start by saying, I signed up and tell you a little story. So I signed up a new client last year and they're a fairly large company, close to a hundred million dollars of annual revenue. I signed them up in June of 2022 and they had not finished their financial statements for December of 2021. So they did not have financial statements for January, February, March, April, May.

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Tom Finn:

Yikes.

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Jim Downes:

And The owner felt that was okay because every morning he would come into work and log into his bank account and see how much cash he had. And that's how he was running the business. And so when we got all done getting everything up to date, I brought to his attention that the money he was spending on temporary labor had doubled from 2022, from 2021, and he was, he was, he went epileptic. Got the phone, called up the head of the warehouse. Hey, Joe, get up here. Do you realize our temporary labor is double what it was last year? You got way too many people down there. So that's just a mini example. Most companies are fine with not getting their financial statements by the middle of the next month. You're doing better than most companies. But it's, um, I think because those kinds of things, when you're getting involved with a client and you help them see the visibility to the those things that are going on that maybe they're not aware of, that's where they become more interested in data. And it's an education, you know, I mean, some people don't think they need it and you need to kind of walk them little baby steps down the road to get them to get attached to the data and really want it. I have meetings with some of my clients. I'm working with... 10 different companies right now, but I would say four or five of them want to meet every week and talk about, you know, what I'm seeing going on in the data. And so they've, they got the religion that I better not just wait till the end of the month and figure out how I did. Or even if it, even if you know your sales are going to hit the target by the end of the month, what, what about your costs or what about your inventory? What about your line of credit? There's all kinds of things going on that, that we need to be paid attention to beyond whether you hit your sales target or not.

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Tom Finn:

For sure.

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Jim Downes:

But it's that, I mean, some clients are more data oriented and other clients aren't. And so you can only do so much. You know, you try to educate them that there's a hidden goldmine here in your data that if you're not looking at it, you're probably wasting money.

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Tom Finn:

So do people hire you, Jim, and your organization when they have a CFO? Because 100 million or even 10 million or 15 million, it's a lot of money in revenue. And are these companies that have an in-place accounting and they need somebody to look at the numbers, or do they have sort of a younger CFO that may need some support and guidance and development? Like how does it actually work when you're working with an organization?

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Jim Downes:

So we have, I wouldn't know how, I wouldn't know, I would say about 20% of our clients have an internal CFO. So they do hire us because we are more strategic in our focus and looking to the future. So, you know, this is kind of a hit on the accounting industry, but most accountants are what I would call historians and they're, they're just, they're incapable of thinking into the future. You know, they're just trained at, I need to get the accounting done. And when the accounting is done, I'll give it to, you know, I hit my target, I'm done, now I go on and do the next month. And they're not really trained to dive into the data and start looking at what's going on. With our young people, we have 12 accountants and we all want them to be CFOs some days. And we teach them, when you give us a monthly financial statement, we want you to do an analysis of what happened, you know, from this month to last month that's different. And so starting that process of looking at the data and making sense of it versus just giving us a bunch of numbers. I call the balancing income statement or a bunch of numbers. And I can show you some examples of here's January, February, March, and there's all these columns and all these numbers. Like, OK, excuse my language, what the hell is going on? Because it's just a bunch of numbers. But the more you can make sense of it and make it usable to the client to take action, then that's the trick. And, but not all internal CFOs are, are good at that because they're, they're good accountants and that may be fine. They're at least getting the accounting done. We, we, we just almost signed, we didn't sign his client up, but they, they had a CFO and they, um, when we delved into what that CFO was doing, he was really more like an office manager and he was also managing the shipping department. And, you know, people are called CFO, but they're not really doing what a CFO should be doing, which is, which is more of the strategic focus, I think.

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Tom Finn:

So when you think about strategy and your own strategy, Jim, you started this company in 2019. What was the hardest thing about building your organization early stage?

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Jim Downes:

Um, so I came out of the world of outsourced accounting and I worked for two different outsourced accounting firms and they both wanted to add a CFO function so they could offer that to their clients. And, uh, I, I felt like that was kind of backwards that the really, that should be selling the CFO function and then the CFO can determine what accounting is needed. And so that's, was the focus of blueprint when I started it was we are a CFO consulting firm, we don't just do accounting. And if somebody just wants that, you know, they, I can recommend they go to some other place. But our, our goal is to be the financial advisor to the client. And there's, there's really not a lot of companies that do that. There's people that give lip service to it, but in terms of actually having a defined process, which looks at historical performance of the company and helping the client create a plan for improving their performance of their business. And then managing that plan, which is the blueprint process. You know, that was what I was trained to do when I was doing turnaround consulting during the recession. Where you went in and looked at a company that was burning cash, like you said, and the bank is ready to pull the plug because they don't want to lend this company any more money because they've lost confidence that they know what they're doing. And so you need to come up with a plan that shows week by week how you're going to generate positive cash flow and get the loan paid off. And so... That is kind of the basis for a blueprint is the same thing for healthy companies. You don't have to be in distress, but healthy companies should be doing that because money is, you know, paying attention to your dollars and cents is super important and if you're not doing it and you're just going along, hoping and wishing that you're going to hit your goals, you probably won't.

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Tom Finn:

So Jim, just to be clear, hoping and wishing is not a financial strategy.

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Jim Downes:

No.

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Tom Finn:

No, okay. All right, well, you know, you might have ruined-

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Jim Downes:

Well, people have goals, you know, so I, Tom, I, I've signed up, I've worked with, like I said, 200 companies, let's say. Um, every, I have never walked into a company and they, and I've said, you know, what is, what is our goals for the year and what is our strategy? And give me that and a piece of paper. Never. And, you know, these are, these are companies that are sizable sometimes and they don't, they, the owner or the management team might have it in their head. Hey, here's what we're trying to do. You know, we're trying to expand into this geography or. We want to double our sales over the next three years, but it's never properly communicated and, um, defined on a, on a piece of paper where you can all gather around and get, you know, get consensus that that's really what we're trying to do as a company and then build a plan, build a metric around how are we doing at achieving that. So most entrepreneurs have these goals, but without a plan to get to the goal is it's, it's. it's wishing and hoping.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah. Look, I think corporate planning or business planning is so critically important. You have to set the strategy as the architect of the business. If you're the CEO, you have to set the forward looking strategy for the company and you've got to be 10 miles down the road in front of everybody else. You've really got to be thinking future state, which is what we all should be thinking about as leaders in companies. What is the future state of the company? How do I get us there? How do I bring in the right labor, the right marketing and sales strategy, the right ops, and then of course, the right financial solutions to hit that target? That is how you build a business.

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Jim Downes:

Most, most entrepreneurs do part of that. They don't do all of that. And-

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Tom Finn:

What part?

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Jim Downes:

You know-

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Tom Finn:

What part do they do?

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Jim Downes:

Well, it depends on the part they like, you know, so if they're, if they come from the sales world, they're, they do a sales plan and that's all great, uh, or if they come from the technology world, they do a technology plan. But there's much more to the company than just sales or technology. There's, you know, I know where you do a lot of your work is in the human side of the business. You know, the human capital, do you have the right people to achieve your goals? And how do you hold people accountable? And how do you set goals for people so that they know what they're expected to do when they come to work every day? That's the missing link. I can't imagine how much money is wasted in businesses because people come to work and they don't really know what their boss expects them to focus on. And it just happens all over the place.

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Tom Finn:

Jim, I'm gonna tell you a story because you hit the nail on the head. I work with a company and they're a terrific organization, great leadership, just had a new CEO put in place. Um, great group of folks, and they do not know what the senior leadership team does. The senior leadership team, if you were to ask them, does not know what their roles and responsibilities are. And it's a little bit of a mess. in terms of how they organize their people and how the behaviors push the company forward. And so when you go into organizations like that, the key is first you've got to define roles and responsibilities and structure and really understand what the jobs are that need to be done. And then of course we have to layer over the financial component. But I think this happens all the time where people don't know what they're supposed to be doing.

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Jim Downes:

I always tell the story of my wife and I like to go out for happy hour every once in a while. And one that one, this is 10 years ago or so we were at, we went someplace and I don't even remember where and we were sitting at the bar having that cocktail. And there's this young, two young women sitting next to us and they're having cocktails too, and I heard the one lady say to the other, I just wish, you know, our boss would tell us what we're expected to do every day. It's very frustrating to come to work and not really know what our priorities are. And I think. how many times do people have that conversation all over the world? Because I know it's not clear a lot of times in terms of what the priorities are and how their job is being measured. So you're spending all this money on people to come to work every day and they don't really know what they're supposed to be, what the game plan is. That's the world.

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Tom Finn:

How do you overcome that, Jim? So as a leader of a business yourself, how do you overcome making sure that people understand their roles, their responsibilities, their client touch points, whatever it is, how do you deliver that message and what do you do?

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Jim Downes:

Well, so we, we sneak up on them because we're accountants. You know, we're boring old accountants that just do accounting. But the cool part about that is we know where all the dollars and cents are. So, you know, where, where there's no pain, um, it's hard to get people to see, you know, there's a different way to do it that's better, but where there is pain, that's where the dollars and cents are key to meet with the owner and say, you know. You're not hitting your financial goals because of this or that. But if the company, going back to your example of the company, that's kind of a, like you said, a mess. It could be that they're super profitable and nobody, there's no pain. So, you know, why are we changing anything? But how much better could it be if it was organized and focused, you know? So, um, our, we, I think that, um, you know, our goal is not. really to be an accounting company. As you said in the beginning, we're a CFO and I'll search the accounting firm. But really the goal is to take those numbers and help our clients make more money and be more successful. That's what really we're up to. But we do it through the numbers because when you're not hitting your numbers, then there's an impetus to change something. And in most cases, it's a lack of organization and focus that is causing the client not to hit their numbers.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, and in hitting your numbers, I'll tell you what we do. We have Monday morning meetings where we go through all of the sales information. We have operational meetings every couple of weeks. And then we have a financial meeting once a month. And that tends to keep us on task and our people on task. And we have sales meetings Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to try and make sure that we are meeting the expectations of our prospects, but also meeting the expectations of our clients, our enforced clients as well. So that allows us to have a rhythm and a pattern in meeting objectives for the company.

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Jim Downes:

We have a tagline for Blueprint, which, you know, if I say this tagline, you're going to go, how does that relate to accounting? Creating exciting futures. That's our tagline. And we're creating exciting futures by getting people to pay attention to numbers. And that's.

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Tom Finn:

You're making accounting sexy, Jim. Is that what you're saying?

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Jim Downes:

We're making accounting relevant.

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Tom Finn:

Okay.

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Jim Downes:

Most accounting is totally irrelevant and you do it to give information to your shareholders or to your bank or file your tax returns. But most accountants don't think about how to make the numbers better. That's not their task. It's not their interest. And I can tell you most CPAs have no idea to do what we do. And the only reason that we're successful is because we've worked with companies and that was part of our job is to figure out how to help the company do better. Um, but CPAs, they don't do that. They go in and look at, make sure the numbers are validated and make a report, but they not delving. I was a CPA and I found it very frustrating that I had no idea how my client was making money or not making money. And so that's what led me down this path. I had a couple of clients that said, Hey, Will you help us? Will you meet with us every month and go through our financials and help us figure out how to do better? But I, and when I started doing it, I had no idea because I really didn't know anything about their business. I didn't need to, to do a, a pinion audit at the end of the year or file their tax return, I really didn't need to know how they created revenue or how they compensated their salespeople or what kind of bonus plan they had, or what kind of processes they had to make their products or how they manage their inventory. I had, didn't need to know any of that. So it's been a lifelong learning for me and a passion to get into those numbers. And every time I get a new client, it's so exciting because now I got a brand new toy to look at this company and how it's performing and see how I can help it perform better. That's the creating exciting futures part.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, beautifully said man, you are clearly a forward looking strategist thinking about the future for your clients, thinking about finance and accounting in a little different way in being more than just looking in the rear view mirror, but much more looking at the future and thinking about this as a strategic operation, which I love. And I think it's a great way to look at the world. Jim, if people want to get in touch with you and connect with you, learn more about your business. get in touch with folks at your organization, how would they go about doing that?

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Jim Downes:

Well, to get more information about the business, you can go to our website, which is www.blueprintcfo.com. And there's a lot of different case studies and there's a way for you to connect with us and do a free one hour meeting to talk about your business and see if there might be some opportunity for us to help you. But beyond that, my cell phone number is 949-405-5440. And I love learning about new businesses. So anybody that's listening to this. is interested, give me a call.

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Tom Finn:

Yeah, and we'll put that in the show notes. So if you're driving, please do not take your eyes off the road and your hands off the wheel. We'll make Jim's cell phone number clickable in the show notes and also make sure you can get to the website. Jim, thanks for being on the show, but more importantly, thanks for looking at the world a little bit differently, empowering other businesses to be successful based on your view of future looking statements. Appreciate you, my man.

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Jim Downes:

Thank you, Tom.

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Tom Finn:

And thank you for joining the Talent Empowerment Podcast. We hope you've unpacked a few tips and tricks to love your job. Get ready to dive back into all things, career and happiness on the next episode. We'll see you then.