Summary

Lindsay Gremmer didn’t just buy a company—she engineered a ATM. Starting with a finance degree and zero illusions about how tough business can be, she acquired Vail Financial Services, an accounting firm with solid bones but untapped potential. What happened next?

She scaled it like a pro.
She optimized operations, built rock-solid client relationships, and turned the business into a profit machine—hitting a ridiculous 73% net margin. No fluff, no corporate nonsense—just smart strategy, efficiency, and knowing exactly how to extract maximum value.

Then, when the time was right, she flipped it to private equity.

In this interview, Lindsay pulls back the curtain on the whole playbook—how she structured the deal, the mindset shifts that made the biggest difference, and the real emotional rollercoaster of selling a business you built from the ground up. Plus, what she’s doing next now that she’s cashed out.

If you want to know how real entrepreneurs buy, scale, and sell businesses for life-changing money—this is the interview you can’t afford to miss.

Takeaways

Lindsay transitioned from finance to accounting due to personal circumstances.
She acquired Veil Financial Services during a challenging economic period.
Owner financing was crucial for her business acquisition.
Building client relationships was key to her success.
Operational efficiency led to a 73% profit margin.
The human element in business significantly impacts productivity.
Lindsay's decision to sell was influenced by burnout and risk management.
She learned the importance of negotiating sale terms effectively.
Post-sale, she reflects on the challenges of transitioning out of her business.
Lindsay emphasizes the value of community and personal connections in business.

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Chapters

00:00 Lindsay's Journey to Entrepreneurship
02:53 Navigating the Purchase of an Accounting Firm
06:01 Overcoming Initial Challenges
09:01 Building Efficiency and Client Relationships
12:03 The Importance of Valuation in Business
15:00 Transforming the Business Model
18:01 Maintaining High Profit Margins
20:55 The Human Element in Business Success
31:21 Balancing Leadership and Friendship
32:49 Cultivating Loyalty Through Positive Culture
34:29 The Importance of Human Connection in Business
36:40 Navigating Burnout and Business Ownership
39:44 The Risks of Sole Ownership
41:41 The Decision to Sell: Weighing Options
43:19 Valuation Challenges in the Accounting Industry
46:25 Private Equity and Its Impact on Valuation
51:13 Exploring Growth Opportunities vs. Selling
53:38 Transitioning Ownership: Lessons Learned

 

Transcript

Jon Stoddard (00:00.43)
Welcome to top &A entrepreneurs today. My guest is Lindsay Grammer, my friend, and she has long time ago, she bought in a CPA firm, grew net income to 73 % and recently sold to private equity firm. So we're going to hear about this story. Welcome to the show, Lindsay.

Lindsay Gremmer (00:22.32)
Thank you, John. So excited to be here.

Jon Stoddard (00:24.766)
Yeah. So let's start this. Let's kind of rewind and what were you doing before you bought this business?

Lindsay Gremmer (00:33.15)
my goodness, before that was eons ago. That's when I was a lot younger. I always say, I always say 20 years younger and 10 pounds lighter, right? So before, it's actually, it's kind of a long story. So I was initially, I was a finance major and that was during the dot com era.

Jon Stoddard (00:44.685)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (01:01.062)
go work for my dad, actually, right after I graduated college. And that's when the NASDAQ dropped 80 % over a year, year and a half time period. And I couldn't, I couldn't manage other people's money. Watching their portfolios drop as dramatically as what they have. And I, it just wasn't the profession for me. And so he was actually a CPA in his previous life and had partners. It was a partner of an accounting firm and

ran into some friends or his old business partners over the holiday and was like, my daughter's miserable. Any chance she can get a job. And so I started out thrown in tax season and literally I hated accounting. was in college. I took intermediate accounting and I was like, I will never ever be an accountant. But I needed a job.

And so the joke in the firm was like, what are we just trying to do? Fill seats. And I immediately just excelled. And that's when I decided to go into accounting, pursue my CPA license. And at the time, I had a really young son. And tax season and young family just don't mix. And so I decided to get out of public accounting.

and go work for one of my clients as their controller. And during that time period, it was at the height of 07. So my stories always have to do with economic collapses. Right. And so that was 07. my husband, so we lived in Northern Colorado at the time. And my husband got a job opportunity in the Vail Valley. And we

Jon Stoddard (02:37.102)
It's the swing up and down. Yeah

Lindsay Gremmer (02:53.114)
We had no ties left to Northern Colorado and we were kind of looking for a change. like, let's do it. But when we came up here, I realized that the cost of living was atrocious. So the pay increase that he was going to get, like we were going to go backwards. And essentially I bought myself a job and it was a very stressful time of my life. purchased the real estate in the Valley even then and it's even more now was

about it was two and a half times what we pay or what we sold our house for in northern Colorado. And so we bought a house at the top of the market. I bought an accounting practice that was tied to my house. And then I watched my real estate drop 50%. And so it was it was it was pure grit, pure grit to get me to get me out of there. But that's kind of the story of, you know, it really was just

Jon Stoddard (03:40.334)
You

Lindsay Gremmer (03:51.468)
On a whim, was doing a Google search of, I was looking to start my own practice and doing a Google search of like how many accounts are in the area and the competition. And I just happened to find my practice for sale and is exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to do tax. I wanted to do the outsource controller work and that's exactly what it was. So it was.

Jon Stoddard (04:11.938)
Yeah. Where did you, do you remember where you found the business listing or was it off market? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (04:16.025)
Yeah, it was actually accounting broker sales. Bill Anaselli, Bill Anaselli was my, yeah, they are still active. Bill, he was such an amazing guy. He actually just recently retired like three, three, four years ago. But yeah, Bill was the broker of the, Julie was the seller. So Bill was the broker and

Jon Stoddard (04:23.896)
Yeah, they're still active, Yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (04:42.98)
He was an amazing guy. He was actually a great broker to work with, even though I was on the buy side and she was the sell side and working for her. But yeah, accounting practice sales. And they're still, yes, they're still in business.

Jon Stoddard (04:54.424)
Yeah.

So how did that sale go? What kind of size was it? You don't have to say the specific number, but.

Lindsay Gremmer (05:02.726)
It's actually, I bought it for $265,000 back in 2000. So it was small. And so here is the funny thing about it. The seller at the time, she ran everything through, right? And so it did not look like a profitable company. And then you combat that with, we're in the middle of this economic meltdown, right? We're at 07 to where banks aren't lending anything like that. So

Jon Stoddard (05:08.493)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (05:32.902)
I made an offer, took the financials, this is actually gonna be perfect for your show, but took the financials to the bank and the bank is like, hell no, like we're not, you know, we're not loaning on this, it's not profitable. So I had to make a deal with the seller at the time to do owner financing for a year, you know, get it under my books where I didn't run my condo dues in Mexico through there.

And that way we could go back to the bank. And so the amount that I paid her was my down payment for it. And then I was literally, no joke, the last business to get SBA qualified before the SBA just cut off all funding during that time period. I'm not kidding you. I was literally the last one. Yeah, yeah. They funded...

Jon Stoddard (06:19.266)
All funding, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (06:24.546)
Wow, yeah. And how much do they fund it?

Lindsay Gremmer (06:29.638)
90%. So it was 10 % down and then they gave me 65,000 of working capital, I believe. So yep, yep.

Jon Stoddard (06:35.662)
Yeah. 65,000 for 265,000. That's a lot of working capital. What was that about?

Lindsay Gremmer (06:40.91)
It was a lot. I don't know. I don't know. They just they just gave me money.

Jon Stoddard (06:46.734)
We need we need to ride it and push it out before we lose it

Lindsay Gremmer (06:52.198)
they just gave me money. yeah, that was that was it was a it was a crazy time period. Just just everything just trying to get alone. Being a new business owner. I was a brand new business owner, you know, I was new in my community. So not only did I buy the business, but it was a service business. So I had to win over, you know, all of my clients and just you know, and the gal that I bought it from. She was

Jon Stoddard (07:04.717)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (07:20.142)
in her fifties at the time. And here I was this young 30 year old, you know, coming in and we are a lot of our clients were boards. so like winning board, board members can be tough, you know? And so having to win over these board members and their different personalities, like it was pure grit, pure grit to get through that time period. I did, did. Yep. Yep.

Jon Stoddard (07:39.416)
Yeah. Did you keep the name of the business? Yeah. Was it an anonymous name or just, or was it?

Lindsay Gremmer (07:48.694)
No, actually, she did she did something really smart. Exactly. No, I have to tell you that I think that that is the worst thing that any, whether you're a law firm or accounting firm is to tie it to you personally. So she named it Veil Financial Services. And so that it was just very just. Yep, yep. And so I just took that over. And she did bring that up when when I bought the business, you know, because she had been in.

Jon Stoddard (07:51.374)
Tracy's accounting or something. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (08:03.842)
Yeah. so you take care of Veil Financials. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (08:17.318)
20, 25 years. So some of the clients that I acquired and, I just passed on to the new owner have been with Veil Financial for probably 40 some years. And so, yeah, she brought up to me that that was one of her strategic moves was just never to tie her name to a business because when you want to sell it one day, you know, and it's actually a really good tip. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (08:27.159)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (08:41.742)
Yeah. So when you took it to the of the SBA and they underwrote it and they said, hey, it's definitely there's cashflow in here. And traditionally you do see, you know, firms with pretty good margins, like 40, 50 % net margins, but sometimes that's with, you know, the owner very dependent on that. What was the case in your situation?

Lindsay Gremmer (08:56.836)
Yeah. Right.

Right. Yeah.

So because honestly, I made sure, so I had to move, it was a year long with the seller. So I had to move the business under my S-corp at the time. And I barely took anything as far as draws or income during that time period because again, going through.

the economic disaster that we were in, I needed to make sure I was, I had a huge risk because she was, she was a pretty tough cookie as a seller. She blamed me for not being able to get the loan. But the reality is, her, when I say she deducted everything, like she deducted everything. She really, she really did. And so, you know, and at that time period when, when credit conditions were getting so tight,

Jon Stoddard (09:53.326)
She moved a lot of her personal expenses through the business? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (10:02.554)
You know, like no bank was even even willing to look at it. So our agreement was one year I would move it under me to prove to the bank that it really is a great business. And I hardly took any, you know, when I say hardly took, I think the first year I paid myself maybe 18 to 24000, you know, just to just to prove cash flow. And we were getting down to the wire at the year when

when the bank was doing their underwriting and she even threatened me as far as like, because the deal was, is that she would just take the business back. And here I was, I worked my tail off to build efficiencies. I even brought in clients during the time period. So it was very scary. And I can't remember it was so long ago. I mean, it was 17 years. So I don't know exactly what the profit margin was at that time.

But in order to get it to where the banks would loan.

Jon Stoddard (11:07.079)
So that was a legitimate threat over your head for 12 months? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (11:10.308)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That thread and watching my house value drop 50%. That was the other thread.

Jon Stoddard (11:14.775)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (11:19.758)
Yeah. So when you got into the books, I mean, was everything as they said or aside from the, you know, running personal expenses and as far as you run as CPA going, that's not illegal.

Lindsay Gremmer (11:30.392)
Yeah, it was. Yep.

Yeah. No, it's not illegal. mean, that's a lot of it's it's funny you say that though, because right after I bought hers, Bill actually introduced me to another business owner in the same area. And he was looking to sell his his practice, but it was majority tax. And so I met with this seller, Jerry was his name, actually, and

And I wasn't I talked to him for a bit. And Bill was just like, Lindsay, all you have to do is just combine two practices. But I was pretty I didn't want to go back into tax. Like I I'm like, there was a reason. Just the tax season, the laws change, you know, like, it ruins your year end because like it ruins your holiday. Like, it's just and tax season isn't April anymore, like isn't

Jon Stoddard (12:15.416)
Well why do you hate tax so much?

Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (12:23.502)
Cause you're so focused on like everybody else is taking spring breaks. Yeah, you're.

Lindsay Gremmer (12:33.126)
My dad, so going back to my dad, when he was a partner many of years ago in the 70s, tax season literally was January to April. And then you got the rest of the year off for the most part, besides your year-end tax planning for the next year. Now, everybody files an extension and then you get a few months to breathe in the summer. And then you have to...

pick up again, starting in August for your September deadline and then your October deadline and then your tax planning. It's just now a year long nightmare. Yeah, exactly. Like why wouldn't you? Right? And so I know I actually just, that's what I'm getting ready to mail now is my extensions. Right? And so I just, when I talked to that seller, I was like, yeah, I just,

Jon Stoddard (13:09.826)
Yeah, yeah, I've filed extensions before, so I know it's like, yeah. Why wouldn't you? I didn't want to do it today.

Ha ha.

Lindsay Gremmer (13:27.846)
I got out of tax for a reason and I'm going to follow my gut, even though I think the companies merged together would have done really, really well, but I just, I just didn't want to go there. But my point is of the story is when I was meeting with him, his financials were really beautiful. And he made a comment to me at the time. And again, I was young. This was my first business purchase. Like I didn't really understand the ins and outs of buying a business, selling a business.

And he said, the problem that business owners have is when you try to deduct everything, because you don't want to pay taxes, then it ruins your valuation down the road. You know, there's only so much a bank is going to add back, you know, because they have to protect themselves, right? You know, it's risk mitigation on their side. And so he, he was very, you know, very much into the opposite of what Julie was. You know, she ran everything in to not pay the taxes. But then I was firsthand experience of

you do that, then you risk, then basically you're just looking for cash buyers, which, right, a lower valuation or cash buyers. So yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (14:31.342)
Yeah. A lower valuation. Yeah. Yeah. That was the case where I had a student, we were looking at an e-commerce company selling products over the internet for haircare. uh, I mean, she had a million dollars in the bank, but she was running everything, everything through the business. And the broker actually gave her a lower valuation. I mean, she was doing like $700, $800,000 bottom line.

Lindsay Gremmer (14:48.388)
Yeah. Right. Right.

Jon Stoddard (15:00.334)
And they were only asking 1.6 for it, which was incredible numbers because she was running everything through the business. mean, she had a $60,000 accounting, uh, uh, a fee on there. go for what? For what? For something else, but it wasn't $60,000. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, uh, when you started taking over, what did, what did you do when like you jumped in and started?

Lindsay Gremmer (15:00.346)
Right. Wow.

Lindsay Gremmer (15:13.466)
Right? Right? Right?

Great, great. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (15:30.026)
you know, learning the business, getting your sea legs. And when did you start focusing on things you could do to improve it?

Lindsay Gremmer (15:39.686)
Almost immediately. So we'll rewind. one of, you know, business acquisition 101, it came with an employee. All right. And I, the employee that I inherited was probably the worst employee I've ever had. She was passive aggressive. Yeah, it's, so she was another nightmare. So this purchase, you know, like I look back today, I'm grateful that I did, but in the moment at the time,

Jon Stoddard (15:41.464)
Did you?

Lindsay Gremmer (16:09.55)
Like it was really stressful. so, but one of the things that, I took away from Julie was that, you know, when you have an employee, so it was Julie and this employee and this employee was doing 50 % of the work and Julie was doing the other 50 % of the work. Well, you don't get rid of an employee that's doing half of your work. That's a problem. Right. And so even though like,

Jon Stoddard (16:32.894)
No, that's a problem. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (16:37.798)
I didn't dig her so much. Like I still stayed on the same pay schedule that Julie was, you know, the same time off, the same benefits, all of that until I could wrap my arms around, is it worth having her? Is it worth having this clients? And what I ended up doing is so I took the first couple of years to just really kind of learn it. And I created

efficiency. you know, at the time, I say that we probably had maybe 18, we'll say 15 to 18 clients, right? And when you're dealing with that many clients, and we, so we were their accounting department from A to Z, you know, we did everything for them. And so when you're dealing with that many moving parts, I learned to compartmentalize, right? And I only work on a client, you know, trying to just get them done from A to Z.

that and then that way I can move on to someone else and I didn't wouldn't have to think about them in a in a for a few weeks. And so just by even me blocking my time, if you will, like I know a lot of these, you know, programs talk about like time blocking and stuff. And so even though I technically wouldn't do that on a calendar, I would do that in my mind to where, okay, we're working on this client this week, I'm going to do everything for them. And then that way,

I don't have to worry about doing anything for them for a couple of weeks. And it really started to create these efficiencies within the business. So that was one. And then two, I really spent a lot of time understanding what my employee did. And after, can't remember how long I had her, maybe two years, maybe three. It was a while. I finally realized, so I was working out of my home.

and she had a small little office in Vale. And I realized by what I was paying her and the clients that she was working on and the office overhead that we were paying, if I got rid of her understanding that I was gonna lose those clients, my net to the bottom line was only like $10,000 in a deficit. And so,

Lindsay Gremmer (18:56.428)
the best business decision I made was to I just handed her $100,000 worth of work. And I just gave him to her, I shut the office. The minute I did that, I had about three or four good solid paying clients that actually I still had to this day before I sell it. It's like the universe talking, right? Like the minute I released that garbage, you know, I had

Jon Stoddard (19:04.087)
so you just cut those clients off? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (19:25.752)
my ideal clients actually find me. And so within an instant, I recouped, you know, like, I if my net on the it really was paying me for to make that decision, you know, and then from there, once I got rid of that, that excess baggage, I was able then to really build the practice that that I wanted to going forward. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (19:37.742)
It was like waiting for you to make that decision. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (19:51.778)
Yeah. I'm just curious. And a lot of viewers, watchers always encounter this when they first buy a business, they inherit the employees, but they talk to the seller and ask them about that specific employee. And there's a couple of touch points like, Hey, this person does this and likes this or hates that or whatever. Did that, the seller match to that employee? Do you think that after learning about them?

Lindsay Gremmer (20:17.002)
yeah, she did. And to be honest with you, this is what, how I think it all went down is, I think the seller, actually, I know that the seller and the employee, were not, they were butting heads. And I honestly think that her solution to all of it, instead of getting rid of the employee starting over is to sell the business and pawn it off to me. Like now that I

Jon Stoddard (20:40.728)
Wow.

Lindsay Gremmer (20:41.946)
go back and look at like the whole thing and how it transpired. I think she made it someone else's problem. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (20:47.906)
Yeah. That's not probably uncommon. Like people build these slow SMBs and go, you know, this is a problem. It's really sucking the life out of me. I'm gonna just give it to somebody else or sell it to somebody else. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (20:55.684)
Right. Yeah, I'm just going to do it. It's a reality, you know, it's a total reality. So and I was in a position again, if someone were to ask me if I do it all over again, unequivocally, yes, you know, but I was also in a position where it sounds bad, but like I needed income, you know, like we were we were new in the community. It was really expensive to live here.

Jon Stoddard (21:17.443)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (21:22.822)
the top of 07, no one was hiring. I was a new licensed CPA and I couldn't get a job to save my life. So I bought my income. That's what I did. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (21:32.387)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you only lost like $10,000 by splitting those clients up and then you immediately found new clients.

Lindsay Gremmer (21:41.03)
Right. Yeah, like we're, yeah, we're literally talking about, made the decision. It was actually over the holidays. Like we split it up December 31, you go on your way, literally came in from after the holidays, you know, in January to an amazing client, you know, an amazing client that I still have to this day. So it was almost like an overnight. And again, I just,

Jon Stoddard (22:05.891)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (22:10.65)
The universe talks to you. It's really crazy that when you either, no, no. It was a, so we did the accounting for our local border realtors here and we did a really good job. And it was another border realtors in the next county over.

Jon Stoddard (22:13.346)
Yeah. Did you reach out to those clients or they just found you?

Jon Stoddard (22:28.119)
Uh-huh.

Lindsay Gremmer (22:38.616)
AE, which is called Association Executive, their equivalent to their CEO, embezzled a half a million dollars. so, and because they didn't have a CPA in place, no internal controls, anything like that. So when they, when they found out that happened, they reached out to the local board of realtors that I did the accounting for and was like, who do you use? Lindsay's amazing. And so it was just, we needed an account.

Jon Stoddard (23:06.405)
we need a new counting. Yes. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (23:08.578)
And so, you know, so the fact that I was a, you know, I didn't need to be a CPA to do what I, you know, what I did, but it helped with credibility. You know, you know, I would never put my license on the line for, you know, for anything and they needed that, you know, so that's, that was the client that

Jon Stoddard (23:18.435)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (23:27.51)
Yeah. So you're, you know, you're in the area. They're talking about the Sarbanes-Oxley where you put your signature, CPA signature on something. Meaning if these are wrong, I go to jail. Right. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (23:37.176)
Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And I worked my butt off to, I had missed out on my son's the first three years of his life, you know, for this license. So you better be damned that I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna put this license on the line for anyone. So it was a good, literally just it happened and it was amazing. So, yep.

Jon Stoddard (23:56.526)
Yeah. Well, when you go to these or these boards find you and they say, Hey, we, what are your services? And you say we're 10,000 year, 5,000 a year. How does that work out? What does that look?

Lindsay Gremmer (24:07.974)
Yeah, so we like to think of it. So if you, the way that we would pitch our services is we do outsource controller work. So you would think a controller, if you were to hire a controller, that's a six figure salary, $100,000 $120,000 a year is what an onsite controller is. So really what our tagline was the whole time is that,

you get the controller expertise with a fraction of a price. And so even if I were to come in at 60 grand a year, you know, and because it's still a fraction, you know, so like, you know, it seems like a high fee. But when you think about, you know, what the cost of a true controller is, and because I ran such an efficient, tight ship, that, you know, that was a that was really a deal for them. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (24:43.214)
Still a fraction.

Jon Stoddard (25:03.19)
Yeah. Yeah. And some of these clients you've had for 15 years plus.

Lindsay Gremmer (25:04.868)
Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I bought, know, I mean, there's clients that I bought with the business, you know, so 17 years now. I I sold it in June. But yeah, I mean, half of them actually half of them probably never never left me. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (25:20.834)
Yeah.

Yeah. And that it's like a very niche. You just go after boards, HOAs, kind of like that. and that is that a huge portion of your business? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (25:28.09)
Yep. Yep. Yeah.

It was majority and you know, it's it's what the seller I tried to bear off from it to be honest with you. Like I tried to work with more small business owners, but I always say, you know, the riches are in the niches. And, you know, and it's just, it's, it's not very rewarding work, but it was recession proof, you know, you know, and you just, Julie had always said to me, you know,

Jon Stoddard (25:46.646)
Riches and the Niches, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (26:02.074)
People really don't care who's doing your accounting as long as it gets done. And I do think that there is some truth to that, you know, I didn't, after I purchased the business, I didn't get the clients that I did because I had CPA behind my name. It really goes back to that personal touch is I made sure that every client felt like they were the only one, you know, even though towards the end we were servicing 25 to 30,

know, big businesses and yeah, just making sure that they felt like they were the only one. Like I think that that was a big part of the key to my success. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (26:40.236)
Yeah. So tell us about the journey of now you're starting to grow and how do you maintain a 73 % profit margin? Because if anybody's watching this and they've like tried to buy an accounting firm, you can go to the top five broker sites and you'll see some great Sims with, you know, 40 to 50 % margins. I've never seen anybody with a 73. So.

Lindsay Gremmer (26:49.626)
I

Lindsay Gremmer (26:59.461)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. You know, so I was actually thinking about that because I knew you'd be asking that here today. Because John, every time he introduces me, that's what he talks about. You know, so two things. One of them, and I wish they were sexy. Like there's nothing sexy about this. Nothing sexy whatsoever. You know, one of them was incorporating software. You know, you talk to any business owner and once you incorporate software.

Jon Stoddard (27:07.266)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (27:18.594)
Nothing surprising, right?

Lindsay Gremmer (27:30.334)
so we incorporated, well, bill.com, if you're familiar, I don't want to get too technical, but, it's an accounting software that, between that and then moving payroll services. So there are two different accounting softwares that reduce the human element out of it. So I, between incorporating both of those, I was able to reduce one FTE, a full-time FTE, but

If you want me to be completely honest with you, I think that really what the game changer was for me was so COVID forward was another challenge in my business and not because, you know, we closed doors or any of that. It was just, it was a hard time as far as we live in a very resort community. And so I had all of these

you know, these, not only do we do homeowners associations, but I did a lot of work for like rental companies and all of that. And so we went from like, the world was gonna get shut down to, you know, to helping them apply for PPP loans to helping them get those PPP loans, like basically written off to now there's all this money flushed in.

Jon Stoddard (28:55.662)
Forgivable. Yeah, just for yeah

Lindsay Gremmer (28:56.646)
for a while until now there's all this money flushed in the system and all of my clients were the busiest probably they'd ever been. So like, it was just this roller coaster of emotions of, I mean, I think about it all the time, like how far the pendulum swung, but during COVID, when we were all locked down, during that time period, I really didn't realize how much

community meant to me until community was taken away. And after that, I really started focusing more on the human touch, the human element. Like, yeah, I can add all of this technology and stuff, networking more, know, being, you know, I kind of, there gets to be a point when you get to be a business owner, like, oh my God, do I have to go to another event and stuff? But like, when you can't connect with humans, you know, like that changes you.

Jon Stoddard (29:29.422)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Gremmer (29:55.918)
And so like that was one piece of it. But then I had an employee start, new employee, March of 21. And she was this young girl. And I'm going to admit like, this is kind of embarrassing, but pre her, I wasn't the nicest boss in the world. I really wasn't. I...

I viewed my employees as profit centers, you know, of like, work for me, you know? Yep. Exactly. Exactly. You need to be a profit center. And this girl, she changed me. And I don't think it was necessarily her per se. It just was the person at the time period. But a week after she started, I hope I don't get judged for this, but I made her cry.

Jon Stoddard (30:26.67)
That's what I tell my kids. You guys are just expenses right now. You need to be a profit center.

Lindsay Gremmer (30:51.162)
And I went home that night from the office and I started thinking to myself, like, if I continue to treat my employees the way I have been, like, no one's going to want to work for me. And it was real, you know, and, you know, so between COVID and just, you know, needing to be more human focused and then making my employee cry, I just immediately changed. And I started treating my staff as

Jon Stoddard (31:01.57)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (31:21.03)
teammates and equals on not too long ago, John, you had asked me like, where's the balancing act between being a boss and being a friend, you know, there is this, you know, there is this balancing act and it's hard, especially when you're a three person accounting practice, right? Or a three person business, but I don't have to go hang out with them at night or go drinking at the bars with them or anything like that, but

Jon Stoddard (31:33.176)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (31:51.174)
getting invested in their life, asking about their kids, flexibility, all of those things, it created so much loyalty. And if you read statistics, the statistics out there are like, when you have a positive culture, the work, the productivity increases by 50%. But when I look back to,

Jon Stoddard (32:14.914)
Yeah, but how do you measure that?

Lindsay Gremmer (32:21.848)
So my teammates at the end, they weren't A players. I love Dan Sullivan. I love his work. And the book that I really love is Who Not How. And Who Not How, talks about A players, people are investments. And I agree with that. But in my situation, I didn't have A players. I molded this girl. She came to me just with a little, like this much.

Jon Stoddard (32:31.01)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (32:49.2)
payroll experience and I molded her into an amazing accountant. So I probably got her to a B player. So she wasn't an A player by any means, but she was the most loyal individual that I could have ever found. If I called her at three o'clock in the morning and was just like, Hey, look, I totally spaced to do this. She would have gotten up and done it. And not because she feared that she'd lose her job. It's because Lindsay needs me. And when I look at

by the time I decided to sell my practice and look, it was literally an ATM to the point that you and I talked how many times before me signing on the dotted line. like, am I stupid for doing this? Like it was churning out.

Jon Stoddard (33:29.816)
Yeah, you went back and forth, man. You were on one side of the fence one day and the other side the other day.

Lindsay Gremmer (33:35.364)
Yeah, it was literally churning cash and I was maybe at that point 10, 15 hours a week at the most. And it's, and I, was because of my team and I didn't even have a players on my team. was, I created this culture to where they, they did any, because we, was a mutual respect. And when I think back to pre that time versus post,

Jon Stoddard (33:48.599)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (34:01.678)
I will never go back there again. Like I have physically seen the hero's journey, if you will, you you, you talk about, know, you see a character in a movie and you know, yeah, right. You know, it's real. And so when I see the transformation of what that moment did for me, and then in turn for my business, like, I think that that's the biggest advice that I could give to any business owners. You want these tips and tricks on

Jon Stoddard (34:07.235)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (34:11.96)
Joseph Campbell, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (34:29.976)
sexy software, or AI or whatever, and it's really putting the human being in it. It's the people, and it's treating the people like people, and not like profit centers.

Jon Stoddard (34:34.446)
It's just not that, it's the people, it's productivity of the people. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (34:41.944)
Yeah. Was there any part of the business in this accounting that you don't do like, know, JJ, the accountant, he's online, big guy. He's, I hate payroll. Just get rid of payroll. Tells everybody, get rid of payroll. Is there anything like that? Taxes, accounting, payroll. Anything just like don't do, you know.

Lindsay Gremmer (34:52.838)
Right. Right. Right.

Lindsay Gremmer (34:58.618)
Yeah. Payroll is hard. Actually, I would probably agree with him. Like we chose to do payroll. Payroll is just, it's hindering. you know, if you're doing payroll, like for, think our clients before, I think we had 15 clients that we did payroll for and typically, you know, they're every other week. So then it limits when you can go on vacation and then you have, you know, deadlines due. So we did.

Jon Stoddard (35:27.502)
switches are every two weeks, it depends on what company it is, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (35:28.846)
Which is every two weeks you have to pay. Yeah. And so whoever wants to own like a 100 % payroll company is insane. They're insane. But we moved to Gusto, which helped. They at least did the year in W-2s and the 941 tax filings and stuff. And so I would say payroll is just, and the laws change all the time.

Jon Stoddard (35:51.854)
Yeah, it was like the, I needed 10.99 for $600. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (35:55.286)
Exactly. The laws change all the time. So payroll is pretty awful. Yeah, that definitely is probably one of the biggest ones to get rid of. But then it's just like, if everyone gets rid of payroll, who's going to do it? And I do, love the company, know, right? Well, ADP, you know, all of these big companies that that's how they make their money. And they're they're actually that's not a bad route to go because at least then they're doing it and you don't have to worry about it.

Jon Stoddard (36:10.616)
Somebody's gonna do it. Somebody has to do it, right? Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (36:24.386)
Yeah. Yeah. So how long was it before you started thinking about, people reaching out to you to want to buy your company or did you start thinking like, I need to sell, I'm sick of it or how did that?

Lindsay Gremmer (36:24.986)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (36:38.406)
So to be honest with you, I was getting kind of burnt. Honestly, COVID took it out of me, be completely honest. COVID totally took it out of me. It was just that emotional roller coaster of, you you think about it. Like we went from one year of thinking all of our clients are going to go bankrupt to the next year. Like there's so much cash in the system.

Jon Stoddard (36:49.378)
COVID did. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (37:04.368)
There's so much money, there's so much inflation, wages are going up through the roof. Like to sit back and think about that time period. Sometimes it's just like, like, was that real? that, and because, right, right. And also to where we live, we're very seasonal. So, you know, in the Vail Valley, have ski season and then you also have summer. And so, you know, in

Jon Stoddard (37:15.8)
Yeah, it's just like, we thought like the whole thing was going to shut down and yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (37:33.034)
right after ski season. So the mountain closes about April. And then people really don't start traveling up here for summer until late June, right around 4th of July, because it's still a little chilly. And so during that time period, we call it mud season. And it's where people don't really come up here too much. And it's kind of the locals, you know, the locals. Yeah, the locals love it. Like we get the great discounted restaurants, like there's all that stuff.

Jon Stoddard (37:55.384)
The locals love it.

Jon Stoddard (38:00.206)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (38:01.21)
but that was always our downtime. That was our, let's breathe, you know, and then you have summertime and then you have a little bit in the fall, although the fall here is amazing. So more people are starting to recognize that, but you you had a little bit of time in the fall before you geared up for the next season. So, you know, we had a few months on both sides of season to where that was kind of the reprieve, the R &R I could settle. Well, after COVID happened.

And, you know, and there's all this money and this like that never that never happened. Like I didn't get that downtime. And so it kind of reminded me again of like tax season of like there is no there is no reprieve anymore. so so there was.

Jon Stoddard (38:46.572)
Is that like the sign of getting burnt out? There's like the mail never stops. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (38:48.932)
That is the sign that you run out of time. Yeah. But on the flip side too, really what my deciding factor is, I knew I was in trouble is I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I'm not young by any means, but as I got older, I really realized how risky my business was. Everything relied on me, you know? And even though I had employees, there was still just this

because they weren't the A players that I needed to, to like run the company, there was still so much knowledge in my head. And I started getting to thinking to myself, like, if something happened to me, which is real, right? My husband would have been screwed because he has, I have this amazing asset that he couldn't get anything out of. He would have been forced then to shut down this business that has value.

Jon Stoddard (39:30.798)
huh.

Lindsay Gremmer (39:44.356)
my employees would have been screwed and then my clients would have been screwed. And so what I ended up doing was I did try to bring in a business partner to help take that pressure off. And she's a great person. We ended our partnership after a couple of years. We just didn't have the same visions, values of what a partnership should look like. And so

Jon Stoddard (40:13.784)
Was this a 50-50 partnership? Uh-huh.

Lindsay Gremmer (40:15.096)
It was a 50 50. She had some clients. So we were just brought both of our clients in and merged it. And that was my idea of let me just take the pressure off. At least if something happened to me, I have somebody here that can at least take over this business. And again, there was I respect her very much to this day. It's just as a partnership, we just didn't work. And so on after that, I didn't have it listed. It's somebody well, this

Jon Stoddard (40:27.352)
Right.

Lindsay Gremmer (40:43.798)
firm approached me, we met through a mutual person and we talked for gosh, probably nine months and they made the offer and it was because I wasn't actively looking to sell but no, I was also burned out. It wasn't an easy decision and you know that John, you and I talked to many of them. my God, you talked so many.

Jon Stoddard (41:07.724)
Yeah, we've talked about it. I feel like six to nine months about that. What side are you on the fence today, Lindsey?

Lindsay Gremmer (41:12.14)
right? It was it's it is so true because it wasn't ATM at the moment. So I was like, it was just churning cash flow. And I really didn't have a lot of involvement. But on the flip side, I still had all this pressure because I was a solo, a solo owner of all the things that I'd said, you know, something happened to me, you know, my husband, I don't I didn't want to put him in a situation where

He had to learn payroll to get these girls paid. We had lost one of our dear friends actually during COVID. He was one of the first gentlemen in our valley to contract COVID and he passed away and he was a business owner and he was a concrete guy. And just watching his wife go through that, not having any business experience and having to unwind a business.

It was really eye opening during that time period and I just, didn't want to put my husband through that. And so I say it was actually the least selfish decision that I possibly could have ever made of, you know, really looking out for all of these other people. But I feel like I was running my business in a very risky manner. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (42:35.128)
Yeah, well that's when the real experience hits you. It's not esoteric or out in the ether anymore. It's real. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (42:40.644)
Yeah, right. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So that was really kind of my deciding factor of I'm still young, you know, I, I'm not ready to retire, but I felt that I needed to take some risk off the table.

Jon Stoddard (42:55.404)
Yeah. And so what was the thought process? This, you know, somebody off market, you're not on market. You don't go to a broker. Somebody off market offers to buy you. So what's the process you're thinking in the head going, what's it worth? Or, you know, should I go to a broker and get more people an auction happening? What, what, what should I do? You know,

Lindsay Gremmer (43:07.514)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Gremmer (43:19.354)
You know, it's hard. So what's really hard is that forever accounting practices, they are not valued very high, you know, like, when it's, Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (43:28.674)
No, it's one X sales. It's one X one to 1.2 X sales, which is nobody's been able to provide the answer for me.

Lindsay Gremmer (43:35.91)
No, it's it's the only it's the only the only business in the industry that's like that everything is based on a multiple of cash flow of net cash flow. So the way I was looking at it, and why I think it took me so long to sell is because I'm like, so here I am. I have built this amazing practice 73 % net net to me. And I get online to

Jon Stoddard (43:46.136)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (44:05.402)
to what is the accounting broker that we talk about all the time. I get online to PO and I see the exact same firm, gross top line, the same, but their net to owner is like 24%. And I'm like, this is crap. Like my business is worth the exact same as this business over here. Whoever's paying for mine is gonna get a smoking deal versus this other one over here, but they're paying the exact same.

Jon Stoddard (44:08.942)
Poe accounting. Is it Poe? Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (44:26.38)
Yeah!

Lindsay Gremmer (44:34.916)
amount. So to be honest with you, it's really one of the reasons why I never was interested in selling in the past because I'm like, I'm getting penalized for building an efficient, an efficient firm. It is it is. And then private equity started coming into the space. You know what? Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (44:34.999)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (44:45.87)
Which is really weird, isn't it?

Jon Stoddard (44:54.166)
Yeah, a couple years ago, it was quiet a couple years ago. Now it's not quiet anymore. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (44:58.756)
Yeah, you know, and they really started changing it to where the valuations of accounting practices finally started changing. And I feel like are being valued more like the traditional business of your net opposed to gross. And even when you get on Poe now, I have started to see their pricing adjustments, you know, based on more net. And these efficient, great businesses are definitely going for more than what they did in the past. And so

To be honest with you, I started seeing the momentum change with these accounting firms. And I did reach out to a broker a while ago, Bill Anaselli, Accounting Practice Sales, his replacement. I did reach out to him. And again, what he was willing to sell it for plus the 10, I think he was 12 % broker fee. Like I just couldn't justify it. I'm like, I might as well then.

bring in my A player, pay them and still make cashflow opposed to, you know, 1%, 1.25 of gross. that was a year. So I was actively looking probably a year prior to when I sold it, right when my partnership dissolved, but I couldn't justify it. then that's when Private Equity came in. And I was like, I think I need to take advantage of this momentum.

Jon Stoddard (46:00.653)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (46:25.422)
Did you have to educate him about the pricing and say I'm not going to sell it for 1x or he just, he just, just offered.

Lindsay Gremmer (46:30.745)
He just offered, yeah. Yeah, he just offered based on financials and all of that. And what he offered was definitely a premium to what I could have sold out for with a broker and I didn't have the 12%. Yeah, yep, yep.

Jon Stoddard (46:46.734)
And the 12 % commission. Yeah. And what are those private equity deals look like? It's at 60, 40, kind of 60 % debt or 40

Lindsay Gremmer (46:55.16)
So this one, this one I just chose to, so it wasn't, it's not full private equity. It was more of a, it's a small like family office style business where you have, you know, you have accounting, you have asset management and you have insurance. So, you know, it's not, I did choose to give up, well, it was an offer to me to have any sort of equity deal going forward, but I was.

Jon Stoddard (47:06.561)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (47:22.146)
There's a no rollover.

Lindsay Gremmer (47:23.364)
Yeah, so I was okay with that. You know, I had talked to friends in the business. And unfortunately, I think the way that private equity tries to structure this, I did talk to quite a few private equity firms prior to accepting my deal. And sometimes I feel like they make you have that first bite of the apple, right? And then sometimes I think that not sometimes I think majority of the time.

they make that second bite of the apple unrealistic, you know, to where you're putting in your time and your energy, and then you don't meet the quota or whatever that they want. And so then you, you know, in your mind, you're thinking the second bite of the apple is going to be bigger than the first time first, but majority of time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so then, and then you're putting

Jon Stoddard (48:11.648)
If they do what they say they're going to do. And if there's arbitrage there and the multiple increases, but if it's not, there's not going to be. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (48:20.622)
all of this time, effort and sacrifice to meet an unrealistic expectation and then you don't end up getting it in the end.

Jon Stoddard (48:30.446)
Yeah. You know, that is one of the, I saw an investment on a website about a machining company that, know, they buy it, they're going to put X amount down, X amount of debt, and they're going to grow it for a 30 % IRR, you know, two to three multiple invested capital. Because they say there's plenty of arbitrage in there with other machining companies. And I'm always like,

I'm a little skeptical. There's just not the operational excellence just because these machinings are three, 200 to $300,000. If they're at capacity, you're not going to get any more work done. If they're at 20%, I get it. Move the jobs over there. You have to reprogram and do it differently. But if they're already at capacity, you don't want to go to 90 % because they break down. But if you stay at 80%, they're okay. This is what I was talking about. I don't know if there's that.

Lindsay Gremmer (49:11.054)
Right, right.

Jon Stoddard (49:28.366)
our arbitrage that comes, you know, I'm going to go get another million company or a CNC. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (49:33.988)
Right, right, right. You know, I met, I belong to several masterminds and one of my mastermind groups, I had met this gentleman, Dylan is his name and he was an optometrist, an eye doctor and approached by private equity and that exact same thing happened to him. So it's not even in the accounting industry that it happens of,

you you get presented this beautiful thing and you take your first bite of the apple and then, you know, you stay on, you know, you're supposed to grow it to X and then the second bite of the apple is supposed to be larger than the first. And, and so he was banking on that, you know, as part of his retirement and it never happened. And so you put your blood, sweat and tears into something that ends up not happening at the end. How was that any different than me just

selling it for a premium, you know, and walk and walk. Yeah, yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah, then that's reality. Like I would hate I hate to say it, but it's going back to the human touch. Like you are just a profit center at that point. You know, everybody talks about how amazing private equity exit is, and it's sexy and all this stuff. But you're kind of selling your soul to the devil to you know, are, you know, you're

Jon Stoddard (50:31.896)
Get out. Yeah, yeah. Be happy with that. Yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (50:55.726)
Was there any, were you at a threshold where you say, I'll keep it, know, &A advisors do this. go, hey, you got a nice business, but if you really want a $10 million accident, you need to go back and do this. And that's going to either through organic growth or acquisition. Were you at that spot and, you decided not to, or where were you?

Lindsay Gremmer (51:13.966)
Yeah. I was at the end actually, and it was one of the conversations that you and I had, right? I was just like, John, maybe, you know, since accounting firms are all the rage right now, maybe it's silly for me to sell and maybe I look to buy, you know? And I went on PoE and I found a couple of ones that had decent profit margins and would fit my model.

Jon Stoddard (51:33.388)
Yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (51:42.406)
And they were going like hotcakes too, you know, and then I was like, I don't really know if I have it in me mentally, physically to, know, yeah, you know, is the gas in the tank. And I was just at a point in my life, you know, my son, he had moved out, he played hockey growing up. And so our world was

Jon Stoddard (51:45.367)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (51:53.794)
That's the gas in the tank. Do you have any more gas? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (52:10.022)
hockey, you know, we were bound by hockey schedule, school schedule. I was running a business. I was just ready for Lindsay 2.0, you know, I'm looking to retire by any means. I just, wanted change. And so I needed some time to just digest what that all meant. My husband and I are empty nesters. Like we're rekindling our marriage. Not that it was bad, but when you have children,

Jon Stoddard (52:20.418)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (52:40.132)
You know, your marriage is number two. Right. And so then, you know, I'm just like, we have to learn about each other again. And I used to know what his favorite color is and I don't know anymore. And just those little things that, you know, that you lose along the way. so putting him number one again, and I was just, I was ready. Like the timing was perfect. And people ask,

Jon Stoddard (52:41.08)
my god. Do they do something to your marriage or what? Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (53:08.708)
You know, all the time, you know, I did give up an ATM, you know, would you do it all over again? And the answer is unequivocally yes.

Jon Stoddard (53:12.418)
Yeah, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (53:16.59)
Let me ask you without you getting into trouble legal, if there's any other payments coming from your acquire, uh, and that you could talk about, you know, that you're not going to get in trouble was how was the process? Do you, did you like the process of transition and turnover or was it, you know, painful and like, you know, that part I'd never do it again.

Lindsay Gremmer (53:34.629)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (53:38.404)
Yeah, I did, yes, I did in my agreement, I got my large amount upfront, but then I did agree to contract to help them with the business transition. And I did an agreement over two years and I, if going back and looking at it, I shouldn't have done two years, I should have only done.

Jon Stoddard (53:54.274)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (54:04.952)
Okay.

Lindsay Gremmer (54:04.966)
Just because there does get to be the point of it's no longer my business and I can't make any of the business decisions, but I'm still the face of the business, if you will. That has been really challenging. And so, and I need a finality to it, to be honest with you. And so, yeah, so if I were to have to go back again, I would have negotiated a little bit higher.

sale value and a little bit less on the back end. in my mind, what I was thinking was I still needed the income. And so that's, I'm disappointed. I did, did, I did because of the income piece of it. Yeah, knowing what I know now, I'm making dramatic, yes, I got this upfront amount, but it's my

Jon Stoddard (54:39.704)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (54:44.846)
Did he ask for the two years or did you need the income? You did. Okay. All right. But knowing what you know now, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (55:00.452)
it's my retirement, you know, it's not touching it. And so I still needed the income piece. And so I'm the one that negotiated that. And if I could do it, I wouldn't have done that because it's hard. It's hard being a part of a business to where everyone still knows me or I'm still, you know, I'm still pegged as the business owner, even though we've met, I'm still there, you know, and

Jon Stoddard (55:01.902)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (55:26.608)
but then not being able to make any of the business decisions, like that's difficult. And so there needs to, I should have done less for that finality.

Jon Stoddard (55:34.316)
Yeah. Are they involved? How often do you talk to them? The new owners.

Lindsay Gremmer (55:37.87)
quite a bit, you know, yeah, they are involved. it was just a little less, they needed to get involved in our office, earlier on than what they did. and so that piece of it was just hard. Like I

Jon Stoddard (55:53.263)
So, so what are they, what are they doing? How are they putting their nose in? You know, there has like there you lean in, you could either put your fingers in or your nose in. It sounds like what would they do to improve a 73 % margin business?

Lindsay Gremmer (56:01.903)
Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (56:07.63)
I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You know, really what their thinking was, I know is that it's not necessarily the margins, it's being able to cross sell their different, yes. It would have, it will. This is hard.

Jon Stoddard (56:22.176)
their offerings there. And is that working?

Jon Stoddard (56:31.008)
You

Lindsay Gremmer (56:34.98)
They needed to do a better job at the beginning of like inserting themselves of who they are and what they offer. You know, that's, that's really where I think the breakdown was. So yes, I think that the, vision is there and it still can, can be there. It's just in their defense, they didn't want to, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And I was doing such a great job with my staff and you know, and the profit margins were great, but

Jon Stoddard (56:40.27)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Gremmer (57:03.878)
they needed to insert themselves earlier on to be able to offer to the clients the different verticals that they owned. And so that really was the vision. I don't think necessarily getting better than the 73 % profit margin. And to be honest with you, the margins are gonna go backwards because you still have to pay to replace me, right? Even though, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (57:27.224)
Yeah. However, I mean, if it's like, if I bought a, a business with a million customers that just had one sole product, but I had, mean, this is what Cisco does, right? Anything networking. so if I bought this customer that has this simple router, I know that they're in the networking space and I could just sell that million whole bunch of other portfolio products. That's the goal. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (57:40.24)
Right.

Lindsay Gremmer (57:50.916)
Right. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. That was the ultimate goal is, you know, it should again, like, it will at some point, like they just, they haven't done the best job on their end of getting in front of clients and being like, this is, you know, not only do we do accounting, but we have all these other services that we can offer you.

Jon Stoddard (57:56.812)
And is that working? mean, is that too?

Jon Stoddard (58:02.71)
It will at some point. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (58:18.894)
And so, and I know that that's why they purchased us is to be able to, you know, to cross sell, you know, you and I just not so long ago did one of those, you know, challenges with who is the gentleman that you and I were following. I can't think of his name, but when they're talking about buying businesses and then buying multiple businesses also, you can just, you know, cross sell.

Jon Stoddard (58:18.925)
Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (58:46.04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (58:47.108)
You know, and I know that that's ideally what their end goal is, and that's the reason why they purchased me. It's just, they didn't have a strategic plan on how to do that. And I think that that's where it fell short. It's just, yeah.

Jon Stoddard (59:02.466)
Yeah. But, but they did look at your client list and goes, okay, we're a bunch of HOAs with wealthy individuals and somehow we're going to get our wealth management and other insurance products through that channel. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (59:08.282)
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the ultimate end goal. just, it hasn't happened yet just because I don't think the strategic plan was implemented the way it should have. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (59:28.11)
Yeah, yeah. All right, so that's where you're at. mean, so you got another year, right, under this contract or so, or what are you trying to, yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (59:35.526)
Um, yes, I do have another year on this contract. am, um, you know, it's, it's odd. It's, it's strange because, um, there is going to be a point where I don't think they need me anymore. So I think a year might be too long. And so, you know, there may be a point at some, at some point to where it would make sense just to negotiate out of it. what, Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know. I have no idea.

Jon Stoddard (59:59.522)
Yeah, and they'd have to pay you to quit or what? Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (01:00:04.902)
So we'll see what happens there. yeah, was, I shouldn't have done two years. So anyone listening? Anyone listening? Yeah. Right. Yes. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Stoddard (01:00:13.678)
But I understand that you're off to, you know, exploring new opportunities. So that's cool. Yeah. Cool. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. Yeah.

Lindsay Gremmer (01:00:25.894)
Yeah, absolutely. love I love I love your podcast. I love knowing you I love the people you've introduced me to so if I can help anyone out there Hopefully hopefully my story has Yeah Yeah, thanks John All right

Jon Stoddard (01:00:37.888)
All right, Lindsay, thank you so much.