Opening, Jason’s New Adventure, and Brian’s Introduction--------------------------------------------------------[0:19] Hello and welcome to Show Me Yours. I am Reanna Werner, one of your co-hosts, and we have a switch up for you today. Um, but I have Brian here with me and we're going to talk about our changes over here at Savvion and with Show Me Yours. We have some exciting news um all the way around. but let me introduce Brian just in case all of you guys have forgotten who he is. Uh, he is the love of my life and he's the guy who makes me come to work every day. It's Brian Werner, CPA, my um partner in crime,[1:03] co-founder at Savvion. Um we are the proud parents of two incredible children. Uh have been uh yeah, we've been doing this business thing and family thing together for a long, long time. Let's see. Gosh, we've been married for is it 17 years? 17. 18 years. Yep.[1:28] We have uh woo um business for over 10 almost 11 11 years. Yeah. 11 years. Gosh, that's more than half of our relationship together. It is. How do we survive? I don't know. I think there's something wrong with us. Just like every a lot of people ask, how do you spend so much time together?[1:51] Yeah, that's true. That's true. Maybe we can dissect that here in a few. First, let's get to our really big announcement. So, as of yesterday, um, which when this airs will be a couple weeks ago, but Jason has embarked on a new adventure. We have been keeping this kind of hush hush. we didn't want to announce until the right time. But Jason uh has probably because of all of us talking about entrepreneurial lifestyle, he caught the entrepreneur bug.[2:27] And even just in our last podcast we had filmed, he had talked about how he was a oh what was the term a a businesspreneur or something. He he had an entrepreneurial spirit but worked within a business. Um but I businesspreneur or something like that. I have to go back to the previous it was a pretty cool term too. Um but anyway he uh he caught the bug and so he has as of today is his first day um sitting at that computer screen probably thinking to himself well what do I do now? Yeah. Out in the wild.[3:05] Yeah. Yeah. and um he has started his own business and hopefully this fall we can invite him back as a business owner and an entrepreneur and have a conversation and catch up with him and see how he's doing. Um and he'll show me yours. He'll show us his or show Yeah. Show us his bare it all.[3:32] But we just want to take a moment to to to give a huge shout out to Jason. Jason was instrumental in helping us build Savvion. As you guys know, we were two separate businesses, BRW and HR Branches who married into one. Haha, literally and figuratively, I suppose. Um, and became Savvion. his first day at the office or working with us was the day we came up with the Savvion name. So, um in the car.[4:06] Yeah. On the way to our meeting or something. Well, he wasn't in the car. No, I'm saying you and I. Yeah. Yeah. You and I were together in the car. It was a Hail Mary ChatGPT moment in coming up with Savvion because we didn't really like the other ideas on the table. Yeah. Not really.[4:22] Yeah. And then we took it to the team and Jason's first day in a team meeting. Um, we all unanimously agreed on Savvion HQ and then we had to keep it quiet for what was that nine months? It was a long time. Um, but it worked out good. since that day, Jason was incredibly helpful in helping us discover who Savvion was truly at the core. He asked those those inquisitive questions as you know what's your brand? What's your brand voice? How do you want to show up in your market? What are your values? Um how do your values show up in who you are and how you act and um who you want to be when you grow up too.[5:07] Yeah, he did. He did. And every single week at every single team meeting, he would ask incredible questions, too. what's your spirit animal? His, by the way, is a stallion. So if you ever see him, call him the stallion. I think he might have a shirt now, too. Actually, it's a gavvel. Oh, it is a gavvel. That's right. It's an inscribed shirt.[5:32] But we're um we're grateful that the for the time that we had with Jason. He was just so wonderful and I'm so glad all of you as a community got to connect with him. Um, and we're so thankful that he was able to see what we cultivate in these walls and build that excitement inside of him and then take that and build his own thing. So Jason, hats off to you. Thank you.[6:06] But yeah, excited for your new chapter. Yeah, excited to see where this journey takes you. And I mean, he's going to be around the community anyway, so he will. I'm sure we'll see plenty of them. Him and everybody will see plenty of him.Brian Joins as Co-Host and Learns the Bucket--------------------------------------------[6:22] So, yeah, that's true. But that means uh you have been nominated to join me as my co-host on Show Me Yours. Yes. Are you ready for this fun adventure? Yes, I definitely am excited. Yeah. Don't know where it's going to go. It's the exciting part. I think that is the exciting part. We never know where where any conversation's going to go, especially with the bucket. And I'll explain the bucket to you here in a moment, just in case it's a little vague for you.[6:52] Crash course would be helpful. Yeah. And it'll help all of you guys, too. Um, and I think what we'll do is, kind of a I don't know, plunge right back in. Let's have a conversation about us building Savvion together. Okay. All right. Sounds good. Okay. So, the bucket.[7:10] Okay. bucket. We call this our third co-host. It is full of gosh, I think it's like 60 70 questions in here and it's all about the true life of building a business. And so, typically we pull three questions. Uh, our guests typically pull them and guests start off by answering the question, but then we have a conversation around the question. Um, guests can pass on a question. They can.[7:42] Okay. But if they pass three times, they have to sing them a little teapot. Ah, very nice. Okay. I was thinking maybe a dare. Yeah. But Okay. Maybe we could do that, too. Okay. Okay. Yeah. For the record, I think we've only ever in our history of using the bucket, we've only had one pass, which is not bad. So if you pass on two questions, you're not at you're okay.[8:08] But once you pass on three, that's when the teapot. Yeah. Song and dance come out. Exactly. And really, it's to honor the privacy of a company. We don't want to violate the confidentiality aspect. So if there's something that's a little too up the skirt, we don't want to go there.[8:27] Yeah. Something where they couldn't get around the confidentiality. I can understand that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm with you. But again, out of all the people we've interviewed, it's only happened once. Just once. Okay. Just once. So, but nobody sung I'm a Little Teapot yet.[8:46] Oh, I'm looking forward to that day because that that that could get entertaining. Uh definitely. I think it'll make great social media content.Brian’s Accounting Background and the Early Days of the Business----------------------------------------------------------------[8:56] Before we dive in, do you want to tell our community a little bit about you and your background and who the hell you are? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it kind of goes back to gosh, probably when I was 15 is when I really started to get interested in accounting because at that point I just wasn't really good at anything else. didn't really have a whole lot of direction at that juncture either as a you know kid in high school and um had a baseball teacher sorry a baseball coach who was also the accounting teacher at my high school[9:37] that was like hey I think you might be good at this why don't we you know check it out why don't you sign up for my class and I want to say there was only like six of us or something like that so one one teacher six of us and uh yeah it just kind of took off from there just you know became a passion of mine, something I really enjoyed. We would work through and like create like these fictitious companies and then we got to actually play with like the first accounting software that ever hit the market. We were able to land a grant and and it just kind of took off took off[10:07] from there. I pretty much said, "Okay, I guess I'm going to college and I'm going to study accounting." and and then I all of a sudden became an accounting tutor for a college campus of 14,000 students and got to, the opportunity just be able to like tutor some of our uh brightest minds and then some people that were why am I having to take an accounting class? But, a lot of football players and basketball players. So, that was kind of a cool experience. And uh when I first uh started my career, ended up in DC and this was a couple months before 9/11[10:40] when you know things really the whole country changed almost overnight. But um but yeah, just had some really cool career experiences kind of working in DC and working in New York City. We even worked um kind of on jewelry um kind of like jewelry row in New York City which was kind of been a whole other topic of you know conversation.[11:03] Well, I mean just because you know Jewelry row there was um you know the there's a lot of um they had a held a lot of inventory some of these uh jewelry stores there. I mean you can go and get engagement rings so they have a ton of diamonds and uh just the security itself just having to go through and go kind of behind the scenes like you know where the customers weren't allowed where they kept a lot of the inventory they inspect the diamonds and they value the diamonds and such. Um, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen so many uh, you[11:34] know, like a bulletproof like uh, doors and, areas that you had to pretty much like buzz and there was a camera and they would have to prove your entry, but then you're in like another tiny room again and then they have to do it again and and then just the amount of uh, firepower that was uh, kind of floating around some of those offices.[11:53] There was no doors on any of the inspection rooms and pretty much people, they couldn't have any like cameras or phones on them or anything like that. So, so yeah, it was just uh just kind of a really cool experience just to see just, because there was millions and millions of dollars of diamonds that were, people were uh handling on a gosh, probably in an hourly basis at that point. So, um, so yeah, and then pretty much moved out to Colorado. I always joke around that I should be grandfathered as a native, but there's a lot of debate over that, but I[12:31] got here about 21 years ago. And, um, worked for people for a while and then just one day just it just, you know, I was offered ownership and at a firm that I was working at up in Denver and it just didn't really speak to me. And I looked at Reanna, came home that night and I said, I think I want to I think I want to forge my own path. I think I want to start my own company and and and see what that's all about. And didn't really have much of a plan at that point. I mean, we took a couple months and really kind of rolled up the[13:04] sleeves and tried to plan as best as possible. And and then um we didn't even plan getting chairs. We Yeah, we ended up getting chairs from Goodwill for $8. and and uh didn't even have an office space to start. I mean, I was working out of a basement and uh our guest bedroom, your first client meeting, they didn't even have a chair to sit on. They sat on your our guest bed.[13:29] Yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah. So, and um but yeah, it's it's been an incredible journey. I mean, definitely it's it it's been a challenge. There's definitely days where I'm just like I don't know if this is the right this is the right choice, but there those days are pretty few far and in between. Those are just on the really tough days. And uh um yeah, definitely you know I hear from a lot of owners and I definitely feel like this from time to time too that you know[14:00] sometimes as an owner you feel like you're kind of on top of the mountain by yourself and you know there's not much of a support group around. So, I mean, I think that's kind of where, Savvion has. I mean, we've always had a community focus and we've always wanted to love on our community, love on our business owners that we work with and such and sometimes just even provide them a place of peace and sometimes just be a an ear for them to, just kind of unload their day, week, month, anything that's been bothering[14:33] them. So, it's uh we kind of joke around sometimes it's, we probably need more couches here in our offices so people can just plop down and just get it off their chest cuz I think it's good for their soul. We already have a lot of couches. We have a variety. Yeah.[14:49] How many do we have? One, two, three, four, five at least. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you ever need to plop down and have a therapy session, we're not licensed, but we'll at least listen. I think we're pretty good listeners. So, yeah.The Bucket Question: Hidden Talents and Quirky Business Skills--------------------------------------------------------------[15:05] Okay. So, what do you say we take the bucket from the viewpoint of building Savvion? Okay. What do you think? Sure, why not? I mean, Savvion's about 9 months old now. Is that right? About 9 months. And well, officially. Officially. Yeah. It's been a lot alive a lot longer. I guess in the planning and stuff, we can go back about a year and a half, almost double that.[15:25] Yeah. So, it'll be kind of neat to talk about a newer business and reflecting on all the crazy things that have happened. Yeah. Okay. So, without further ado, why don't you go ahead and pull a question out of the book. I'm going down to the bottom. Are you going deep?[15:51] I don't even think this one's ever been tapped into. I guess we'll find out. All right. What's one hidden talent or quirky skill you possess that you unexpectedly find yourself using in your business? What's one hidden talent or quirky skill you possess that you unexpectedly find yourself using in your business?[16:27] That's kind of a tough one. That is a tough one. I think that definitely makes you sit back and think for a sec here. I could probably say, of course we out we outsource our IT. However, for a while, I felt like I was probably one of the go-to people just for like ome of those just my computer's not working type of situations or like something's not working properly.[17:10] Um, just from a computer software standpoint. And like in the beginning, I'm why do people keep on coming to me? like I don't feel like I'm that skilled or that cool. But I think eventually it was just okay, I I see that I'm able to usually at least troubleshoot pretty quickly or recognize when it's time to call our IT company. Yeah.[17:39] Like when it's above my pay grade and I'm uh, let's not even waste any more time. Like we need to pick up the phone. So, you are really good with software and computers and troubleshooting. Me, I'm if the restart didn't work, I give up. It's going to explode. So, I'm so grateful for you doing that. But, yeah, I remember at the beginning, not necessarily Savvion, but BRW and HR Branches during their our humble beginnings before we could even afford it support. You were the go-to guy. Yeah.[18:10] I also remember sometimes that would frustrate you too because you're "It's the middle of tax season. Five computers are blowing up. I can't do this [expletive] anymore." Uh-huh. And you would just you would come home and you'd be pretty frustrated because you're I can't do all these things, especially during tax season. If you guys know anything about a CPA's life, pretty much February 1st to April 15th is the only thing you do is taxes. Yeah.[18:42] And so like it but but that was also the other thing like if we didn't address it, we bottlenecked our team and they couldn't get anything done. So yeah, they weren't being productive at that point either if it didn't get addressed. So yeah, exactly. I think that was definitely one of those defining moments where it was "Okay, I'm wearing eight hats. I may have to take one off and give that hat to somebody else." Yeah.[19:09] Just because And especially like Yeah. If it's something that's taking you a lot of time and then you're also getting frustrated or it's, impacting what you're trying to, what you what you do. Well, then it was definitely time to be "All right, we got to find help. We got to find a professional." Oh gosh. And the saga there didn't end either. Do you remember once we made that call to bring on an IT firm? That was a mess. We had to kiss a couple frogs. We did on IT firms that just actually made our systems worse[19:44] than they actually helped. Like they created more hoops to jump through and didn't honor our business and our structure and what we were doing. And that was another herculean effort in itself is getting our IT under control. Thankfully, we've been with a firm now for a few years and they're spectacular. If you ever need a referral, call our office. We'll tell you who it is, but we're not going to say anything about anybody right here.[20:12] Um, but yeah, that was getting it to a place where it was good was really hard to do. Uh-huh. I know we're supposed to be talking about Savvion from this perspective and it it's interesting because now we're looking at this infrastructure and it was built for two separate businesses and now we're about to start embarking down that path. We've we've already started doing some of it.[20:38] Yes. But we've still got a long way to go to merge it all back together, too. Yeah. So, it never ends. It never ends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what about you? Hidden talent or quirky talent? What was it again? So it was Yeah, it was pretty much like hidden talent or quirky skill.[21:05] You know what I have to say? It was my hidden talent of interior design. M I um as as silly as it is, I believe that our style and aesthetic that I bring into the office gives our community a sense of peace and it communicates who we are without words. Does that make sense?[21:36] Sure. Definitely. And so people can quickly get a sense of how we operate and they it I feel like it's easier for them to conform and work for us because of our office and our quirky, colorful, crazy outside of the box office. And I don't think I've ever heard anybody walk into this office and say, "This place is ugly." Or maybe they did in their mind, but they didn't share it with us. I've never heard anybody verbalize that.[22:08] Yeah, usually it's the office. This place is great. It's absolutely wonderful. It's comfortable and inviting. And I think that really was the goal, you know. Um our values are hospitality, trust, and expertise. And that never changed when we went over to Savvion or merged to Savvion. It's always been hospitality, trust, and expertise. And it really starts with the hospitality aspect. like everything I thought through when it comes to this office, the five or six couches, right? the feeling of being[22:39] at home and the warmth of lack or the warmth of of our environment rather than that sterile environment with the mahogany desks. Um, I wanted to make people feel comfortable and welcome and selfishly it was to help us do a better job because when you feel comfortable and you feel welcome, the more inclined you are to open up and engage and the more information we have and the because you're more comfortable, the better off we are able to or the better we're able to do our job. Mm-hmm.[23:14] Um, so strangely enough, the interior design, although I am an amateur, um, I think it lends to who we are. It's that homey feeling. Um, so, which is actually quite the feat because I mean, we're in an kind of an industrial space. Yeah. Um but you did provide with you know the the space itself does it's comfortable it's inviting it's warm it's it is homey people when they come here they want to they don't want to leave and they you know and I think it really also contributes to like the work that[23:57] we're able to do because when people are more comfortable then they open up more too. It's true. So yeah, and then just Yeah, I was we were just watching a TED talk today. Yeah. And she was talking about I can't remember her name. Ingrid something. Ingrid Fetell Lee. Was it Ingrid? I think it was Ingrid.[24:15] But um it was an incredible TED talk because she was talking about, just the introduction of color, what it does for people's mentality, their mental health, their productivity in the workforce. And I really feel like we have a really incredible just splash of color throughout our office. what she call it the Aesthetic of Joy.[24:33] Aesthetic of joy. Yes. And then she started to talk about, how traditional like schools used to be where there were just like very kind of earthy tones or just very muted tones and um very boxy and hospitals, same thing where there was just, it was just very very blah.[24:54] Yeah. She cited a study, wasn't it? after Sandy Hook. Yeah. Um they renovated Sandy Hook and made it more colorful and inviting curvature introduced curves to the score. Yeah. Rather than sharp angles. Um, but she's I forget I we'll have to put in the show notes a link to the TED talk, but um she said something to the tune of, they they surveyed the kiddos at these colorful schools and they felt safer at school because of just that Aesthetic of Joy, which I think is just[25:30] there's something to be said about the environment you're in. If you feel sterile, you're going to act sterile. Yes, definitely. we're not a sterile bunch around here. No, we got a lot of personality. We got to let it shine through. I know. Especially HR and accountants, we're we're the refuge for the cool kids. It's a pretty interesting dynamic.[25:57] Uh-huh. Right.Mistakes, Grace, High Standards, and Paying Tuition---------------------------------------------------[26:00] Okay. What do you say we pull another question? Let's do it. Okay. You get to pull this time. I get I've never pulled a question before. I haven't never really I don't know what to do with myself. Interesting. Okay, you ready? Are you worthy? No, but I'm going to do it anyway. Just because you gave me permission.[26:18] Popping the cherry, right? I want to tell HR on you. That's an appropriate You got a good one there. Yeah. If you could give your younger, less experienced business self one piece of advice specifically about dealing with mistakes, what would it be? Dealing with mistakes. Okay.[26:50] I would probably I mean, this might be kind of short and sweet, but provide more grace. I think, looking back, I've always been just very, very hard, pretty much my my probably my worst critic. when something doesn't go right or you make that calculated, you take that calculated risk, it doesn't work out or you go in a different, sorry, you go in a direction where, maybe you go down a rabbit hole. Um, sometimes we call it paying tuition around here, which is pretty much okay, that was a very expensive mistake[27:30] and now we just uh got an education as a result. Um, but yeah, maybe I would I would definitely say we're we're all humans and especially as business owners, like we don't have a magic crystal ball. We're going to we're going to you're going to make a ton of mistakes, like a ton. You might even almost I feel like sometimes it might even be daily. And uh to not to not let that get you down to not don't don't let that discourage you. Don't let it hold you back. Now, of course, you got to learn from it because[28:09] I'm you you can't keep on repeating the same mistakes, but just to let it probably just roll off maybe a little lighter and not allow it to to weigh you down. Yeah, I think everybody on our team is a hypocrite. Bear with me as I say this. Yeah, I'm like I'm interested. You'll you'll see where I'm going here.[28:38] Every single one of our team members is like this is we are so gracious and kind to the person next to us who makes a mistake. Like it's okay. I've got your back. We're going to hustle through. We're going to figure this out. We'll make it right. We always make it right.[28:55] Right. But the hypocrisy comes is we're so gracious and kind to the person next to us, but we beat ourselves up. Like every single one of us, and I'm guilty of it, and I probably manifest it within our team, and I'm sorry team. I don't mean to, but it's like I if I make a mistake, I chew on that pickle for so long, like it eats me away for days. I don't sleep.[29:26] Like I beat myself up internally. You may not hear it or see it, but I am literally lashing myself on the inside because it just doesn't feel good. And I expect myself to be at my very top of my game at all times. And I mean, just recently this week, um it was kind of a combined effort. myself and a couple team members really made a combined mistake.[29:55] It was pretty visible to a client and they probably were "What the hell are you guys doing over there?" Because you know those moments when you stumble and it's like it's not just one stumble. It's like you just keep stumbling, and you're "Fuck, stop it." You know?[30:10] Yeah. Can we stop at two stumbles instead of proceeding the number four? Exactly. And then it just turns into like stupid, sloppy, clumsy stuff, right? And then you're beating yourself up on that period that you missed on that email on top of all the other [expletive] that you had to shovel out. Um, but it's it's funny because it's like I was beating myself up. One of our team members was beating herself to the point of tears, you know. She gave me a big hug and she she had alligator tears and she's "I'm so sorry." I'm "No, you're good. I'm so sorry."[30:45] um, all of us do this and all of us are hypocrites and it's why can't we give ourselves grace? Why can't if we can do it for the person next to us, why can't we do it for ourselves? Why is that? I don't know. I'm afraid. You know what? You know what I'm afraid of? If I give myself grace, I give my permission myself permission to be sloppy.[31:10] And I'm not willing to give myself permission to be sloppy. I don't know. I don't know either. But yeah, I guess I guess I could see that. Not that I'm a sloppy person, but if I give myself too much grace, then what does that mean? Yeah. Would you would you let your guard down a little bit at that point? Maybe you wouldn't hold maybe your standards would come down a little bit.[31:32] Yeah. Huh. Never really considered that, but Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I don't think I want to entertain that. And I think that's why, and dare I say, if I see a team member with those lower standards, what am I going to think about them, too? Yeah. My opinion of them might change if they're "Yeah, I made a mistake.[31:51] Whatever." I'd probably have a problem with that, too. Definitely would. Yes. ability is huge. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now, do I want them, beating themselves up to, a lack of sleep or alligator tears? Absolutely not. But is there a balance? Yeah. I don't know actually. Is there like a happy medium or is it just ying and yang pretty much?[32:19] [expletive] them both. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Huh. I'd like to ask our team that and see what they have to say. That'd be a great question. Like what is that balance? Yeah. I don't know because, we do have high standards and really there's no other alternative. Yeah. Yeah.[32:38] I mean, how can we be experts that our clients trust without it? Yeah. We're dealing with very important issues that our clients face on a daily basis. I mean, to help them navigate through. Yeah. How often do we say that our clients never come to us on their best day? Yeah. Yeah.[32:57] They trust us the most to help them through some of the most difficult stuff. And if we're not on our a game, we're useless. Yeah. We just made their problem harder. I mean, I always joke around. I'm people aren't calling us and saying, "Hey, I'm just sitting here having an ice cream cone and everything's freaking fine and dandy." I hope one day a client calls me and says that like everything's great.[33:19] I just wanted to talk to you today, hear your voice. I just wanted to tell you really good news that I'm eating ice cream. And actually, I mean, I guess we do get the good news calls though. I mean, they do they do happen from time to time, but I don't remember the last one. Yeah, I can think of one. I'm not I'm not I'm not here.[33:38] I can think of one of our clients getting into they're growing and that getting into a new space to allow them to grow. So, that was Okay, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just helping them n navigate through that whole process. And he worked years for that. Uh-huh. Yeah. Years. He paid his tuition.[33:58] [expletive] Yeah, he did. He did. And he got there and worked hard and Yeah. and he graduated. He has high standards as well. Yeah. Yeah. That was kind of fun to tear apart. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, that was a that was a Yeah, that was a go deep. That was pretty deep. I like that one. I like feel like I need to shake it up. Yeah, right.[34:20] Okay. All right. Your turn. I feel like I need a drink. Well, we can do that, too, baby. It's not right now. We're recording. All right.Boundaries with Friends, Family, and Free Advice------------------------------------------------[34:34] Describe a moment when you had to put your foot down with a difficult family member or close friend about your business boundaries. Oh [expletive] Oh man. So I'll repeat once more. Describe a moment when you had to put your foot down with a difficult family member or a close friend about your business boundaries. I have one.[35:01] Oh to you. you go ahead cuz I have a good friend. Um, she was there by my side. H first day I started HR Branches. She was a business owner, too. And when I first started HR Branches, I slightly expected her to be my first client. Um, and she didn't become my first client, which, I was "No pressure, no big deal, but she could have really used my help." Um, but she knew she could really use my help. And she would find during personal times ways to interject HR questions and[35:44] consult. And there were a few times I even picked up, I did too much for her. But I found myself almost not feeling manipulated. I don't know what the word is. Um taken advantage of or taken for granted. Maybe taken for grant. I don't even think it like taken advantage of means intent. I don't even know if it was intentional on her. Like I always say when I give presentations um to new entrepreneurs about hiring their first employee to think twice about hiring a friend or a family member because one[36:21] party will unintentionally take advantage of the other. Mh. Right. Um and it's always unintentional. Oh, don't worry. It's just my sister. She'll understand that her niece is always sick and I can never come to work. Right. Yeah. Um it's unintentional. And I think it was unintentional on the side of my friend.[36:40] she would just you know talking to a friend here it is and I think unintentionally in the back of her mind she's like well re is one of my best friends in the world so I already have access to her I don't need to be a client and there was a time when I had actually with your encouragement you're like she's taking she's going too far like she's taking up your time she's impacting your day at work and you're working for her and she's not paying us this how we feed our kids Yeah.[37:11] And I did have to at one point eventually say, "I can't do this for you." And I think those were some of the hardest words in business I ever said to anybody. Um because it's hard to tell a friend, I want to help you, but I can't because I have to make money. And it's not that you're putting the money in front of your friendship, but this is your job, you know?[37:36] Yeah. So, yeah. That's kind of interesting when you have a friendship but then there's business that kind of intertwine. Mm-hmm. Um I think it was Alex Horosi that said that your friend should be offering to compensate you or they should be excited or even like offering to be "Hey, I want to give you money. I need your help." Right? Um, and usually that's like a sign of like a a really strong like a good friend because they recognize that, whatever you're about to[38:16] help them through or guide them through or whatever you're about to advise them on is going to be, such a huge relief in their world. They recognize your value. Yeah. And then you got kind of the opposite. But I wouldn't necessarily say like it's like a bad friend type of situation, but you do have those friends that they don't offer and almost expect I guess. Yeah.[38:39] Maybe cuz they because of the friendship. Yeah. Is it like maybe a sense of entitlement or something? I don't know. Well, I don't know if I wouldn't call it an entitlement. I think it's just they kind of, because the friendship is there. They can confide in anything, right? They trust you.[38:59] They feel comfortable. o, it's almost I think it's something that they don't really almost even think about "Hey, I should be probably offering to like pay or hey, I'll take you out for a nice dinner or something or do something nice for you." I mean, I understand sometimes people like maybe they don't have a whole lot of, extra dough just laying around or whatever, but even like that small just kind of token of gratitude I think goes a long way. I mean, I've received small tokens[39:34] of gratitude along the way. And true. I think that sometimes even is more special than sending somebody a bill and just getting paid. That's true. Right. That is very, very true. I love getting those small tokens. So, did you ever receive any tokens? Gratitude.[39:51] No, I don't even know if I ever really received a thank you. Yeah. Which is tough to say an acknowledge all on its own. Um, it would have been nice to receive at least some sort of I mean, I'm not saying that she didn't say thank you. It probably just wasn't a memorable one.[40:09] Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Where like really you remember that moment or you remember with that, if there was a token, sometimes that token might be that moment where they're "Oh my gosh, thank you so much." Yeah. I know it's not much, but here it is. Something from the heart.[40:29] I think the thanks that I got was, "Okay, thanks. Bye." but I don't know for sure. Like I said, it wasn't memorable. Yeah. Which stinks. But yeah, I do. Well, my love language, it's gift giving. Yep. So, yeah. I love gifts. Diamonds, guys. Diamonds. She knows how to get those. She just puts a couple drinks in me.[40:55] I got And then all logic just, flies out of my brain hole. Ladies, I got tips for you. Well, no, it only works with you. No, I mean for their husbands. You're not going to go buy diamonds for other people. That'd be weird. We'd have another HR issue on our hand. Yeah, we go broke pretty fast, too.[41:16] Oh my god. Yeah, we would. Yeah. I don't think mine's I don't know. I sat there been kind of, as we've been discussing yours trying to think of one through kind of the years. I don't know. One that does stick out I think is it's kind of similar. It was it was actually one of our friends and um you know she went into you know she was concerned and worried. I mean she had received a it was a pretty massive um bill from the IRS and uh you know after we took a look at it I was like[41:56] hey I'm like you don't have anything to worry about here. Like this is not accurate and you know we just got to send them a send him a letter and such. So, and it didn't take us a ton of our time. Um, but I know that she was, yeah, she was definitely concerned about, it was a, it was a six-f figureure tax bill and anytime I think anybody gets something like that, they of course you're going to freak out, right? You're going to, you're going to be worried. You're probably going to lose a ton of sleep and, you might pick up a[42:28] bottle and be "Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? How am I going to pay this?" And yeah, um, she she knew she knew who to reach out to and um, we were able to get it corrected for and I mean, she didn't owe anything, but I don't remember ever receiving any type of thanks.[42:48] I don't remember receiving Yeah. any type of token or even hey, thank you so much. yeah, here's a handwritten card. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. o yeah, it's kind of like back to what we were just discussing. Like I guess maybe she just kind of expected us to do it for her.[43:10] Yeah. Without that gratitude, I guess. Yeah. Were there any boundaries that you had to put in play? I think the question involved boundaries. Was there any boundaries that had to come out of that or Well, yeah. I think after the boundary after that was hey, we're, this was this was kind of a one-time thing like going like after this like we're going to have to charge you.[43:40] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is tough to do. Yeah. Yeah, it is. is and I think when you do have that friendship, just kind of bringing that all kind of into the to the fold, it can be kind of an awkward conversation. Very much so. I think it's probably even more awkward if the friend's coming to us and asking us to do something for us to be "Hey, I got to charge you." Yeah.[44:06] it' be a lot easier if they're just "Hey, I'm gonna Yeah. Huh." Yeah. Yeah. friends, family, a tough one. I mean, yeah, family, I think, is a little bit easier. you do the taxes for pretty much all of our family. Yeah. Um, but they're actually great. They're very wonderful to work with, at least from what I see. Um, our family doesn't come to me for HR.[44:36] They don't need it. They don't need it, you know. So, I guess I'm safe. Haha. Yeah. Um, they're not concerned about that stuff. But yeah, it's it's an interesting dynamic to have like that whole friends and family thing and feel like you're you're being taken for granted. Yeah. It feels yucky.[44:56] Yeah. I think at this point, just because we've had so many experiences over the years, I think we're probably a little more hesitant to help, or be go into business with friends because we also have done that before. And sometimes that doesn't work out well. Nope.[45:14] So, hiring friends, that's never really worked out. Luckily, there's one friend who works for us now. Um she's been an absolute godsend, but I can't say Yeah. Um I can't say outside of that, like we've actually had good luck. And when we first hired her, we sat down and had a very serious conversation like this has never worked out for us before.[45:38] Um we think you're absolutely amazing, but here's the foundation that we're going to set this on. When we're at work, we're at work. Yeah. Well, we're not at work. We're not at work. Yeah. Um, and she's been great. We don't see much of her outside of work anymore, though. No, we don't.[45:57] Oh, yeah. So, but probably because we exhaust her during the day. Yeah. She's living up to our our standards, I suppose. I don't know. She's amazing, though. H yeah, that was a that was almost like a I'm I was about to pull the pass card out potentially because were you?[46:20] I think there were so many that I could think of, but I didn't really feel like a lot of them were that memorable, but at the same time, it's like that's a hard one to it's a hard one to openly discuss. It's hard to talk about cuz we're talking friends and Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. But this is show me yours.[46:39] Yeah. Yeah. And if we're not going to be vulnerable, how could we expect anybody else to come on the show that and and talk about theirs? Yeah, that was that was one that Yeah. Yeah. had to go deep to the core on. I like it. Yeah. I mean, we just talked about two friends of ours.[46:58] They'll probably know who they are if they watch this podcast. well, sorry. That's why we don't name names. So, yeah. Yeah. But, you're probably right. They probably know who they are. Yeah. Well, we've had conversations with them, too. And it's because of those conversations, they're going to be "Oh, because we had to put those boundaries in place." Yeah.[47:25] So, yeah. But there might be other friends watching who might think that it's them. They might be wondering, isn't that the shitty part, though? It's like these two situations are actually not uncommon for us. They happen more than like we could probably tell 12 more stories that are very similar. A lot. Yeah.[47:47] Yes, we could. We could probably talk all night. Mm-hmm. But then we'd have to have drinks and then we'd get sloppy and start saying names and then we're fired. And the stories they would be kind of repetitive. Yeah, they would. because they're all very they all end up kind of similar. Yeah, they do.[48:06] So, they start similar and they end similar. So, yeah, be kind of like a broken record. That wouldn't be good material.Closing, Savvion’s Work, and Final Wrap-Up------------------------------------------[48:15] Touche. Well, babe, what do you say we uh bring your first episode as my my handsome and sexy co-host to a to a close? Sounds great. All right. Well, do you have any words you want to say about Savvion and, promote what we're doing? Sure. We never really promote us.[48:36] Yeah. Right. I know. We really don't. We don't toot our own horn. That's probably another fault of a lot of business owners. We just Yeah. We don't we don't give ourselves the uh the kudos that we deserve. So, it's true. So, yeah. here at Savvion HQ. Um, we handle pretty much all of your people and money needs. And of course, a lot of people are "What? That sounds very generic. What does that mean?" So, so on the people side, we focus on human resources, um, people and money, which[49:08] is kind of a hybrid. We, um, we offer payroll services. So, we will process your payroll and file all of your payroll tax returns. Um, and then we also do tax services. We do tax advisement and strategy and then we also manage um books for clients. So we do bookkeeping kind of accounting and some higher level financial recommendations.[49:32] So, um, you're probably more equipped to discuss kind of more HR like in detail, but Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, so we, uh, we love on the people and the money for companies and, um, we've got a lot of great cohesion here, and we're finding even just more and more ways to to provide more value to companies with that cohesion between HR and money.[50:00] Yeah. Very well said. and money. People and money. We help small business owners sleep better at night because quite frankly, the two things that small business owners never got into business to do except for us. Uh-huh. Is manage their finances and deal with the HR headaches. Uh-huh.[50:20] Right. And it's what keeps them up at night. Yeah. So that's what we're here to do. And we have lots of couches. We have lots of couches. And we have booze. Yes. and booze. We're talking a lot about alcohol right now. Did you guys know it's a Friday evening? Yes. And we're here. We're thirsty, friends.[50:41] Well, thank you friends for joining us for another episode of Show Me Yours. I am Reanna. This is Brian. Together, we're the Werners. And we're looking forward to seeing you on our next episode, Show Me Yours.
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