Building the Premier Accounting Firm: An Intentional Podcasting Journey, with Roger Knecht

How intentional are you with your podcast?

Roger Knecht, President of Universal Accounting, has helped thousands of accountants, bookkeepers, and tax preparers start and build a successful accounting firm. Roger also hosts Building the Premier Accounting Firm, a weekly show that is nearing 300 episodes.

Every decision Roger made with his podcast has been extremely intentional and well-thought-out. In this episode, we cover:

• Introduction (0:00)
• The decision to launch a podcast (2:37)
• How the show has evolved over the last 4 years (8:42)
• Promoting podcast content (13:40)
• Re-publishing older episodes and other experiments (17:35)
• Improving attribution and podcasting ROI (24:03)
• The power of celebrating others (29:04)

This episode was produced by Red Cedar Marketing. Need help launching and running a business podcast that actually produces results? Visit www.redcedarmarketing.com.

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:05

Welcome business podcasters to another episode of podcasting and professional services. If this is your first time here, this podcast features stories of experts and professional service providers who have created a business impact through the power of podcasting. I'm your host, Jon Tyerman. And if you're watching this on YouTube, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating and review. Really helps the show today features Roger connect host of the building, the premier accounting firm podcast. We talked about his experience publishing a weekly show with over 300 episodes. Each month he publishes a cornerstone video episode recorded in person that he distributes on YouTube along with other audio only episodes. We talked a lot about some of the experiments that he's run over the course of the last almost five years running the show. Um, he's very intentional with his approach, and I think you'll find a lot of value in this conversation. But first. Imagine you're able to build trust with buyers. Imagine you're able to accelerate your network growth and create endless content, all from just one activity. Well, that's the power of podcasting. And if you're ready to explore the idea of launching a podcast for your business, I'm offering a free podcast consultation. Simply go to redcedarmarketing. com or send me a message on LinkedIn. to get in touch. All right. And now for my conversation with Roger connect. Today I'm joined by Roger Knecht, president of Universal Accounting, one of the top accounting training and coaching providers in the United States and Canada. Roger has helped thousands of accountants, bookkeepers and tax preparers start and build their own successful accounting firms. Roger is also an author and host of Building the Premier Accounting Firm Podcast, which is available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Roger, welcome to the show. John, great to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm excited to talk to you about your podcast, but first I think it would help to set the stage a little bit. Um, can you give our audience a brief overview of universal

Roger Knecht: 2:18

accounting? Certainly. So we're a post secondary school for accounting professionals. We essentially work with the owners of the accounting bookkeeping tax businesses. We work with them to grow their business and train their staff.

John Tyreman: 2:31

Excellent. Very succinct. Um, that's great. It looks like, um, so let's, let's talk about. It looks like you launched your podcast in early 2020. Um, can you take us back in time? Like walk us through your decision to, to launch your podcast, building the premier accounting firm. How did that decision come about?

Roger Knecht: 2:50

Oh, well, I've got an interesting story, at least one I feel is interesting. So essentially the way it goes is I've been blessed with a voice that many would say I'm good for radio. So I'd like to think I also have a good face for television, but, uh, as for the voice, I, for years have had the opportunity to do voiceovers and various work in that. that regard. And it was always encouraged that I get on the radio, do something. And as podcasts became more popular, everyone was saying I needed a show, but I was reluctant to get a show because I just didn't understand what was going to be the story, what was going to be the purpose of the actual show. And I committed myself that until I could answer that question, I just wanted to start. So. Uh, after much promptings and encouragements, I finally put a little bit of thought to it and figured out, okay, what, what's going to be the platform, you know, what's going to be unique to my show. What am I, what am I going to bring to the marketplace that would be, uh, at least interesting. And, uh, through that, I discovered a few things that were going to be of importance. And one of the things that really helped me through this process is I had someone that was a producer say, That before I go live, I should actually record 10 episodes, have those in the buffer so that I could have a playlist to go live with. I figured, okay, I've got to get that figured out. And I needed to figure out, do I have guests? You know, what's the storyline? But the real telltale was when I got clarity as to if I was going to commit to do this for a year, what would happen? What would I do? And I wasn't going to do this unless I at least had some, some clarity as to what a year would look like. And once that was there, I was ready to pull the trigger, started doing the interviews, got a cue of about. Oh, 15 to 20 in the hopper. We released 10 on day one. And ever since then, we've been going strong. We're nearing 300 episodes and I love it.

John Tyreman: 4:28

So you said that you, you didn't want to. Get started until you got clarity. So what, what did clarity look like at that moment?

Roger Knecht: 4:36

Clarity was first of all, what was my role as the host? What am I doing? What am I talking about? And why would anyone want to listen continually? It wasn't just me getting on and on a soap box, just talking about anything and everything. I wanted to have some type of theme that someone would want to come back for. So until that was clear in my own mind, I just wasn't willing to commit. And so once I had that. Purpose that clarity, um, it just became a little bit easier for me to go from one episode to the next because I knew, okay, this is the format. This is what I'm going to do as the host. This is my role. But even more importantly, this is the topic that I wanted to discuss and how I felt it was relevant. And so once I got that determined, it was easy to come up with a name. It was easy to come up with a description. It was easy to actually invite the guests. The guests were Told very clearly, this is who the audience is. This is the purpose of the show. And all of a sudden, I think, I think it became not only easier for me to host it, but it became easier for them to come on as guests and actually speak to my audience.

John Tyreman: 5:35

Yep. Having that clarity and having that focus and who your audience is and what topics you're trying to talk about and why they should care. That's, that's critical before you launch. Um, there's a couple of things I want to unpack, uh, about that story. So, um, first of all, it's, uh, the, the notion of committing to a year. Spoken with a few different successful business podcasters, um, From the upstream leader podcast being one of them, they committed to a year. Um, BJ Kramer from inspiring people in places. Um, it's a podcast that features more engineering and AEC professionals, but he committed to four years of doing the podcast. Um, before he launched it, he likens it to going to high school. I'm curious why a year and can you speak to the importance of committing to that year?

Roger Knecht: 6:23

So yeah, a year is more or less abstract. I did hear of others doing the same. The reason for it was because I didn't expect to have a return on that investment, my time and the money. And I needed to give it some time. And if I could not commit to the consistency of it, I knew I'd lose my audience. So I needed to find the cadence. Okay. Is this going to be a daily show, a weekly show, a monthly show? Okay. Well, once I resolved that it's going to be weekly, then all of a sudden I understood I needed 52 of these episodes and I only had 15 in the hopper. So clearly I'm going to be going at this for a while. And so I started to become very diligent about finding the guests and figuring out the topics. Well, that took a lot of time and energy and it wasn't just some ad hoc thing. And the other part of it was, is we got, as we were working through the hopper, the ones that were in the queue started to dwindle and there were a few occasions where I didn't want to be in this. This haste of, I've got a show that needs to go live this Wednesday. What am I going to do? So I never got down below maybe two or three at the least. And so that rhythm just kind of kept things going. And once the snowball began rolling, then it became really difficult to say, I'm going to stop. I was having too much fun. I F I was getting feedback. I was getting reviews. I was starting to see an ROI. It was indirect. I'm I've not been able to monetize the show just yet, but as for the ROI of. Me doing well within the, the community I'm in and showing cells come from it indirectly. It just make, made me feel as if I'm doing something right. And that allowed, allowed me to get into the second, the third year. But here's the interesting thing. It's not with one year commitment. What you think it is when you think one year, you're presuming then a year, 52 weeks from now, you're going to make a decision. Am I going to do year two? No, because of the hopper, I was deciding whether or not I was going to do year two. Um, coincidentally, maybe about September, October. So I had, I had this buffer so that if I'm going to go into the next year, I've got to make this decision now because the episode I'm recording on to say, October, whatever, was going to be the one releasing in January. And I had to decide, am I going to keep going? So it wasn't when I started, I thought it was going to be 12 months later. I'd make the decision. Honestly, it was about nine, 10 months later I was making the decision.

John Tyreman: 8:36

Okay. Um, yeah, that, that makes total sense to me. Um, and. The other part that I wanted to kind of talk about was the timing of your podcast launch. It seems like the stars aligned pretty well because launching a podcast in March 2020, I don't think you could have launched a podcast at a better time, quite frankly. Yeah. You, obviously you didn't plan for COVID, nobody did, but what was your experience with kind of launching a podcast in the early days

Roger Knecht: 9:08

of COVID? It was very interesting. Obviously, it's surreal in the sense that a lot's going on around that time as we're launching it and beginning to promote it. But you're right. We started filming this or recording back in November, I think was my first episode. So we began in November, uh, recorded through December, had a few things in January. And as I was working with the producer, we're just getting everything situated so that the show could be uploaded and put onto the platform. And you're right. Come March, just as the pandemic was, was launching, I was also launching our podcast. And so it was this serendipitous type of a thing where all of a sudden I had people that were at home. Locked Walked in, couldn't do anything else. And, uh, fortunately could listen to a podcast, and I was blessed to be one of those that they chose to hear.

John Tyreman: 9:52

Yeah. Um, I, I also, I too launched a podcast. I think it was in 21, so it was a little bit later. Um, and you're right, podcast downloads are much d were much different back then than they are today. Yeah. Um, so speaking to that and how the, how the, the landscape has changed, running a show for the past four years, I'm sure your own show has changed quite a bit. Can you kind of speak to how, how that, how your podcast has evolved? How has it grown over the last four years?

Roger Knecht: 10:23

Well, it's kind of interesting. One, it grows with the feedback. As you get input, you start to take those things into consideration and, uh, try and tailor things to the wants or needs of individuals. The better thing is, is I'm getting, I feel better quality guests. And so I'm getting on the show individuals that are a little bit more accustomed to an interview format. Uh, they enjoy what I do and the, the professionalism I bring to the experience. But for me as a host, uh, I've become a little bit more intentional. I still wish to become a lot more intentional as to how I plan and prepare for each episode. But the idea is, is if you went back to my original episodes, I think it was yes, conversational, but a little bit more, ad hoc. And today I think there's a little bit better rhythm to the whole experience. I'd like to think people would notice the difference. Um, I don't know that they would, I would, I'd notice, notice the difference. I think if I heard an episode for my first year and one from this year, I think I could tell which one was which. But for, um, for me, fortunately I put enough preparatory work into it to know what outline I was going to use for the show. And it hasn't changed too much. So the format is still, uh, Just real quickly. What I do is I welcome the guests. We go into a little bit of history of who they are. That got them to where they are. We discuss their expertise and after their expertise, when the timing is such, I actually interrupt and do an offer. And then I do a summary of the conversation. It's basically me sharing the highlights that I felt. Came from my discussion. And then after that asked for a final thought from the guest and they share their final thought, and then I wrap up the show and it's really had a nice little flow to it. I felt that it's something that if, if I were a listener, I would enjoy. And clearly I listened to my own episodes and it's got a humorous, I will. Go back and listen to an episode that I recorded, say 12 weeks ago. It goes live. I jump on and listen to it. I don't even remember the conversation myself. It's like, I've had so many conversations like, oh yeah, I forgot about this. Who is that guest? Oh, this is who it is. So it's kind of humorous to me just to realize that it's as new to me because I lived it through the interview and now I'm hearing it for the first time. So, uh, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

John Tyreman: 12:35

Yeah. You get a different perspective when you're kind of a fly on the wall of your own conversation. Oh yeah.

Roger Knecht: 12:40

Oh yeah, no, it's kind of a unique thing because I'm, I'm hearing myself and honestly, I can't remember what we go into next. So the conversation is just as new to me as it is for my listeners.

John Tyreman: 12:50

Oh, that's good. That's good. Um, um, so you, you do all that live, you do everything live. Is there any post production that you record for your episodes?

Roger Knecht: 12:59

So, um, kind of, so right after the episode, this is something I like, um, Uh, I'd like, I think it's unique to me, so shame on anyone listening to it. I'm just kidding. No, you can do it. Uh, after we record the episode, I invite the guest to actually share a promo piece. And so I give them a little script, have them record a promo piece and we use that prior to releasing the episode. And it's gone over very well. So that's the only post production thing that we're recording. Um, the producer takes the show from there, rarely has any edits whatsoever. They'll do an intro, outro, kind of clean it up on the front end and it's done. So it's an easy peasy type of thing. We don't really do much in the way of, you know, re edits or shoots. Okay.

John Tyreman: 13:40

And, uh, for those that maybe they're not familiar with your show, um, can you, it, you, it looks like you. You do repurpose and redistribute a lot of your content on a number of different channels. Can you speak to, um, that workflow and how, how a podcast gets, gets published and produced? And then what happens next? What does that marketing flywheel look like?

Roger Knecht: 14:02

So what I do is I have a team of individuals that I challenged to with, from an episode actually record, or excuse me, a snip out about three to five. Shorts that we can repurpose for social media. And they usually do a pretty good job. In fact, I have some that are very good at finding as many as 10 per episode. And it's quite fascinating because they are, uh, the simple highlights from the discussions. And we take those and put them into social media. But the thing I'd add to this. Um, that some of your listeners might appreciate is we do a studio recording once a month, and then we do our others, primarily audio. And we've moved to restream to where it's actually now a video audio component. And I share that because I'm getting enough shorts. That I can repurpose from an interview from that single studio recording that I'm able to get what I want for the rest of the month or longer as it relates to promote as to promotional material. So there's a lot of audio only is that. That I don't repurpose because I was doing audiograms originally, and I just didn't find that they were beneficial. So we've moved away from the audiograms, moved to video shorts, and those have been very, very good for us. And so out of that one studio recording once a month, I get plenty that I'm able to repurpose and it does great to promote the show and everything else. So, uh, I'm safe that within an episode I can get, you know, five to 10 intelligent things that are said. So I'm happy that way.

John Tyreman: 15:30

I've found, um, I've recently discovered within the last couple months the power of YouTube shorts. Um, and I'm sure that you've, you've been on that, on that bandwagon for quite some time. Um, are you using, are you repurposing those on LinkedIn as well?

Roger Knecht: 15:46

Uh, yes, um, not as much as I'd like. My team hasn't really gone that direction, so I would like to do more of those. The answer to that is obviously yes, I do have them on there, but they're clearly not as prevalent as you would find on YouTube. So YouTube has been very friendly to us in that regard. So the shorts have been popular there, popular on Instagram, but LinkedIn not as much so, but I do use them there. I'm

John Tyreman: 16:12

very bullish on video on LinkedIn because I don't know if you've noticed it, but on mobile, if you're scrolling the LinkedIn feed and you find a video and you watch it, you wait a couple of seconds and it says, swipe up for more. And then you swipe up on LinkedIn and it serves you another video from another account. It's a mix of personal account and brand accounts. Um, but it's kind of like a, it's got an Instagram reels. Sort of feel to it, but it's on LinkedIn. Yeah. They've only recently rolled it out over the net over the last month or two. Um, but something, maybe you should bring, bring it to your team and say, Hey, what do you think about this? Um, cause I love it. I'm a little bullish on it, especially for business podcasts.

Roger Knecht: 16:53

Um, well right now we are on it, but I'm going to kind of double down like you're suggesting and see if there's more we can do there because I have a great library of these shorts and so to repurpose them would be wonderful.

John Tyreman: 17:05

I think that's, that's kind of the big opportunity that I see is creating what I like to call like media public or media channels on LinkedIn with these company showcase pages, branding it around your podcast. Um, and then using that as a publication platform, I'm finding some success with that on one of my other shows, um, as a discovery channel. But anyway, um, yet, thank you for kind of going behind the scenes for, uh, what you do to promote your show. It looks like you mentioned you've got a library of content. It looks like you're republishing episodes from past years in between, kind of sprinkle it in between some of your newer episodes, like walk me through that decision. It sounds like, uh, what would have been kind of like some of the results of that experiment?

Roger Knecht: 17:51

Wow. There's a little bit of history here. We didn't know whether or not the cadence of one once a week. Was enough. And so for about three months, yeah, it was three months. We attempted to record a number of episodes cause I had a queue that was growing. So I had guests that had come on and they were waiting too long to have their episodes go live. And so I said, okay, let's accelerate this and actually publish two episodes a month. Well, they were very costly and expensive to produce. And for me to repurpose them or to, uh, Uh, publish them that quickly. I just wasn't getting the lift in the downloads and the subscriptions that I thought I figured if I published twice off twice as often, I would hopefully get twice as many downloads. And that wasn't the case. And so I realized, okay, I'm going through my inventory too quick and it's too costly for me to go at this cadence. Is there an alternative? So we backed off and went to one episode a week again, and then I realized, okay, there's gotta be some way to repurpose old content. And I just learned that there was some way in which Libsyn, which is where I host actually enables us to repurpose, not, not republish it, but repurpose it. And so it keeps the same download counts for the original publication and by re we call it rewind. And so on Friday, I do a re rewind episode where I actually. Re release a previously published episode. And fortunately, I don't know that, I mean, my producers understand this, what they're doing is Lipson isn't showing that it's been published a second time. I'm taking the previously published one and I'm repurposing it. And so the counts of downloads build off of that initial initial publication. And so all of a sudden I'm now getting that second content to my audience. And for my audience, it's. It's new to them because odds are it's a publication I did say two years ago and I'm just bringing it to their attention. So, um, yeah, it's worked out wonderfully. Well, I've seen some old, uh, episodes actually get a good download again. And, uh, obviously I've already produced it, so it doesn't cost me anything to republish it.

John Tyreman: 19:56

Yep. Subscribers this month didn't see what you published three months ago. So, you know, it's, it's always wise to recycle the tunes. I like to say, yeah, what are some other things that you've kind of experimented with or tested with different components of the show or things? Things like that.

Roger Knecht: 20:14

So we've tested the studio version, which is bringing someone in house and having an interview. I will definitely say that it is a different interview in person than what we're doing right here, where we're both remote. Um, I have good conversations like we're having here today, but there's a different vibe when I'm in the room and I'm able to play off a body language a lot more, get to a little bit more of a casual conversation. And so my episodes that are live in the studio generally will go over an hour. Where my typical ones are around 40 to 45 minutes. And so I get a little bit more in depth with the guests. We talk about some more personable type things, so they become a lot more relatable for my audience. And so once a month I have this unique version of my show that's different than the other three or four that might be published. And so I think that variety has helped my listeners because it's not so redundant. That my, my episodes are all the same. I get at least one every four that has this unique cadence to it. And because of the video nature of it, I get a pretty good version from the studio that I am able to host on YouTube. And this is where I think your listeners will find it interesting. We've published both the live studio version adjacent to the audio only version. So on YouTube, you'd have the thumbnail of the audio only and right next to it, the same release of the episode in a video format from the studio. And I'm always shocked how the audio only version on YouTube will get as many or near as many views or downloads as the video version. I'm like, what the heck, what are people doing that? They're just. Cause all it shows is the thumbnail for the 40 minutes where right next to it, the other video that they have access to is the visual version. And for whatever reason, the audio gets a lot of attention as well. So my point is, is we've been testing that and trying to see, okay, how do we repurpose it? So those, this is just the end of it. Those, because I have two versions on YouTube, I will play with the title of the video and I will change the description slightly in the meta tag slightly so that I've got Two same interviews, but they're both titled different and one's being, uh, optimized a little differently within the YouTube format. And so, or platform. So it's become kind of a test of sorts where we're trying to see, can we get a greater lift playing with the meta tags, playing with the description, playing with the title and so forth.

John Tyreman: 22:37

You know, I have. A theory with YouTube. And I think it's more, I think it's more of an audio platform than people may realize. Yeah. I think people click if they, YouTube is easy to click into. And I think that it's because we're so used to going to YouTube to look, look at videos, like how to videos and things like that. And then you go and click it and you're listening to it. And then you just go to another tab, right? Videos playing in the background. You don't see it, but you do hear it while maybe you're doing some other, other work or, or something like that. So that's my theory. And I've heard that from a couple of different folks as well, where the, um, the audio only version of their podcast on YouTube does just as well as video, video formats. I, you know, my, for personally, I disabled the RSS ingestion on YouTube for, for this show, because, um, as a marketer in, in the eyes of Google, there's this, this notion of duplicate content and it can actually hurt you. If you have duplicate content on the web. It's a, it's a negative signal to the search algorithm. And, um, so that's why I disconnected it, but I can see a case for like, you're doing AB testing, you know, audio only versus videos. So kudos to you for, for experimenting with that. Thank you. So, uh, where do you plan to take the show from here? Uh,

Roger Knecht: 24:08

the next thing is how do we monetize it? We've gotten to the point now where it's, it is costly enough that it needs to be justified a little bit differently than it currently is. It takes a lot of my time and there is a good deal of expense that we've incurred in trying to promote it. Um, coincidentally this year I'm building a studio, so I'm going to go even deeper into it. financially and it's a greater commitment. So, um, yeah, we're going to try and figure out how we can monetize this thing. So I happen to be going to some podcast conferences with the intent of seeing what I can learn there. Uh, the, the whole idea is is I'm recognizing this as an integral part of our business model and being a part of the business model, it deserves our attention. And I'd like to think we're giving it. Uh, good to good attention to produce a good quality product, but at the end of the day, it's got to have an ROI and right now it's an indirect one and I'd like to make it a little bit more obvious.

John Tyreman: 25:00

So what are some of the things, if you don't mind me asking, what are some of the things that you're doing to attribute the podcast to revenue?

Roger Knecht: 25:05

Uh, if I had an answer, I'd know what I'm doing. Um, so obviously there's the commercials we're trying to actually take some of our products and we've created commercials that we'll embed into the actual show that will promote our material. Uh, we're going to try now and actually with the, audience that we have go out and get sponsors that with sponsors, we can embed their con or their commercials within the, um, show. The challenge we've been faced with is we're not large enough to really get paid for downloads and so forth. So I'm not at that level, but. I do have enough of a unique audience that I think I can get sponsors that will pay. The question just became is, are the commercials dynamic or are they static? Are they hard embedded into the show itself and evergreen or are they dynamic that I'm just kind of inserting them as people pay for them? So that's a challenge that we try to address. And honestly, I don't know where we're at with that. I think we're going to be going the static route, but in any case, it's hopefully going to afford us the ability to sell sponsorships. Okay. Promote our particular products a little bit more intentionally within the shows. And, uh, hopefully we'll see some lift from that. And if I can, then that will hopefully monetize it a little bit more specifically because I can then attribute revenue to episodes and specific call to actions.

John Tyreman: 26:27

Do you operate on a lead generation model? Do people reach out to you for types of services?

Roger Knecht: 26:32

our school is such that for people to engage with us, they need to speak to us because we need to learn a little bit more about their experience, background goals, and what it is they're trying to accomplish to be able to recommend the correct curriculums for what they're intending to do. So it's not a shopping cart online, go pick what you want and you're out. So I really struggle in many instances to, you know, direct someone to a transaction, but I can direct them to free offerings that are clearly lead gen opportunities. And as part of the funnels, I'm really bringing them into something that is specific to their situation. And the more I can learn about their needs, the more likely I can recommend a very specific product. And so, yeah, it's all lead gen. It's just how do I find a person where they're at, at their time of need and address that. Yeah.

John Tyreman: 27:20

Yeah, I've, um, in my experience, I've found some success and it is, uh, in using an open ended text field on a, maybe it's a contact form or some sort of a lead gen form where it's, the question is very simply, how did you find us? And a lot of times you can find within those open ended text fields, like, Oh, I listened to your podcast or I, you know, I follow you on social media and things like that. It can be really insightful, especially when compared to some of the, the last click attribution, um, reports that you get from, you know, like Google or, um, maybe even like your CRM system. So I don't know if you've, You've played around with things like that, but that could be one way to help kind of get clarity on where leads are coming from at least.

Roger Knecht: 28:08

Yeah. We we're always trying to figure out how we can better attribute different things to either the finding of potential customers or the nurturing of them, but I can definitely tell you the indirectly I, I. I'm fairly involved in the accounting community to the point where, whether it be with our student base or just individuals in the community where I attend a conference or something, it's, it's inevitable that I'm, uh, I'm approached by persons that share that they listen to the podcast and it helped them make some decision in their career. And they've, they've changed because of something they heard. So clearly I'm, impacting individuals. It's just associating the dollar with it. You know, where, where did I financially gain from that? So definitely getting the kudos, definitely seeing the lives change, just trying to be a little bit more intentional about where it's being attributed in the PNL, I guess. Yeah,

John Tyreman: 28:59

that's excellent. Um, yeah, well, this is, uh, this has been a fantastic conversation. Roger. Um, is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you'd like to touch on?

Roger Knecht: 29:10

Yeah, there is. Um, and, uh, this is something I feel is very important because it's an epiphany that I realized having a podcast not only gives you a voice, but it gives you a chance to indirectly celebrate other people's stories. And if you can take yourself out of the limelight and actually highlight your guest. Put them on the spotlight and tell their story, get their expertise. One of the things that you do is you become their champion and they then in turn become a champion back to you. So I have just found that because I've bothered to take the time to let somebody tell their story and share their insights and their expertise, All of a sudden they're grateful for me providing the platform. And so I think from a podcasting point of view, if you do it right, you actually can help other people and it's through helping others that the tides rise because they're going to pull me up with them. So I just really appreciate the fact that the podcasting, uh, platform exists. It's allowed me not only to connect with people I wouldn't have otherwise known, it's allowed me to make friends and acquaintances that I wouldn't have otherwise had, but. Really sharing these amazing stories has been a joy. I just have learned so much just being given an opportunity to, as a host, just ask questions I would have wanted to ask all along, but now I have a platform where the person's willing to stop, listen and answer my question. It's just a phenomenal platform. I love the opportunity that I've had to get to, uh, learn things that I wouldn't have otherwise known and meet people I wouldn't have otherwise met because that platform of being a podcast host has afforded me wonderful opportunities that. I don't know how else I would have had them. So this is a great platform.

John Tyreman: 30:50

Yeah. I've had that same experience. I've had conversations that I wouldn't normally have had if I didn't have a podcast. I think that's, that's one of the major benefits of it. And you, you point about, um, lifting other people up and bringing them into the spotlight is spot on. Um, yeah, you've, uh, it's, it's, it's, uh, It's definitely, I think it's, it's a joy hosting a podcast. Honestly, it's a labor of love for me. Um, I, I like editing audio too, and I like having conversations. So it's like, it's just play. Um, Well, Roger, thank you so much for sharing your experience, sharing your insights, sharing your perspective on podcasting. Um, if folks that are listening to this, check out building the premier accounting firm, wherever you get your podcasts on YouTube, um, and connect with Roger on LinkedIn, ask him about his, his services and his, his company. So Roger, thank you so much.

Roger Knecht: 31:44

It's been a pleasure. And always remember this, if it's about accounting, it is universal.