Note: Due to time constraints, the following machine-generated transcript has not been reviewed. It will contain a number of inaccuracies. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Randy Crabtree

Today, our guest is Scott Scarano, you probably know Scott, one from The Unique CPA he’s been on twice before. This is really his second time as an only guest. But Scott is president of Padgett, North Carolina, which is a full service accounting and tax firm. He is also and I don’t know what his title is these days, but is it host is it rapping custodian? Is it we’re gonna go with rapping custodian of podcast or actually content hub called accounting tie formerly known as sons of CPAs podcast? He was and I’m gonna take credit for this, although I’m sure it wasn’t me it was him. He was named to the CPA practice advisor 20 under 40 top influencers and 22. And I’m only taking credit because I did nominate him, but I assume others did as well. But all that being said, Scott is probably best known for being the co host of The Unique CPA live podcast last August in Chicago. I’m being facetious, but he did co host and it was an awesome time, Scott. Welcome to The Unique CPA.

Scott Scarano

What’s up, homie? I’m back. Good to be back. I love that intro.

Randy Crabtree

I’m thrilled to have you back. And I’m thrilled to be back to although I just did this an hour ago with someone else as well. I have an addiction to recording.

Scott Scarano

It’s like our jobs now. Right? Yes, it’s our jobs. We just we just interview people. We all week, every week.

Randy Crabtree

It is pretty much I have four interviews this week alone that I’m doing and then I think I’m a guest on at least two other podcasts this week. So it hits your record all week in a week. Oh, boy, this might be a big one with six overall, but you know, I’m guessing that’s pretty close to the number. How about you?

Scott Scarano

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s four or five. All right. I’m not a guest on I need to be guest on more shows. This is I’m a guest right now. Yeah. On yours. I gotta go guest on more shows. Like you gotta you gotta tell me everybody. You’ve guessed it on. I gotta. Okay.

Randy Crabtree

I thought I had introduced you to it. Maybe I hadn’t. Geraldine Carter, have you been on hers? Not yet. All right. And you know, Geraldine and on mine, okay. She’s been on. Okay. Yeah, she’s great. I love her and her message. You know? Awesome. I’m

Scott Scarano

so excited for her episode. It was a great one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that hasn’t come out yet. Of course, no, we still have a big pipeline of episodes.

Randy Crabtree

Well, you’ve also got Ron Baker, I know you said a big one coming up. Those are two different pricing people that Geraldine does more than that. But pricing is a huge line

Scott Scarano

pricing people. We just had to raise the hood of the UK. And I just released that one. That’s he’s got the four pillars of running an accounting firm. And one of the pillars is pricing. Pricing people.

Randy Crabtree

Oh, no, we’re gonna

Scott Scarano

positioning. I know, this is totally separate from me, on the other side of the pond, and he’s got the piece going on to what is this? Amazing I think this is this is the holy grail of accounting is the piece the piece when accounting Hi, we’re gonna have blog like so you said, you mentioned Content Hub. Yep. And accounting. Hi, I see this as the High School of Accounting. We have a podcast that is the theater of the mind, as Ron Baker likes to say, that’s the listening for the IRS. We are getting ready to launch our YouTube channel, which is going to be ah, TV. Accounting Hi, TV is similar like MTV. But that’s going to be where we release all the video. We’ve got video for everything. We just I just haven’t been ready because I don’t have the right like borders and like way to present it. I get my own wave with all these things. So the TV getting ready to be launched the blogs. So that’s going to be this is what tied in here is we’re going to have a guide posts. So it’s called the accounting high guide. Oh, that’s our blog. And each blog is going to be a guideposts that leads you toward the holy grail of accounting. Don’t ask me what that is because I don’t know yet. But we’re on our way there. We’ll figure it out. What is the one thing that is the most important thing in running an accounting firm? We know what these pillars are. And it’s the same pillars that Reza had. I mean, I had very, very similar P word what we did all those P words already. So me and Nicole. We do varsity tips now used to be next varsity. Now, we’ve done about 25 Different P words. We’re going to narrow those down to the most important ones, the pillars the pillar peas, and continue to iterate on those. So we’re gonna do reaction videos to ourselves from last year and 102 class on pricing a 103 class on pricing where we react again next year. Hang on what we did this year. So each year, we’re gonna go back and revisit these classes. And those are going to be more classes to consume at accounting. Wow, we also have the Gazette that hasn’t been released yet. That’s our email newsletter. Like all of these things I’m just making bigger than they really are. It’s just an email newsletter. It’s just going to be blogs. And we still just have a little podcast, you know, but I get so excited about these things. This is like my life

Randy Crabtree

you do and you’re great with ideas. You’re always an idea guy, which you know, every time I talk to you, you give me ideas that then I steal and make my own, but you inspire me. Know, you,

Scott Scarano

you inspire me to come up with ideas anytime you have something you’re working on. I’m like, I’m energized by it. And I want to help.

Randy Crabtree

Yeah, well, we got some few things that you and I are going to be talking about. Maybe we’ll talk about on here but that I got going on two of them. I’m looking for you to be involved in so happy to do it. We’ll talk about that. So let’s go I mean, man a couple different things. But you were just talking about all these you know, the Gazette and the pillars and you know the is that the guy the TV oh, we’re going Geez now because that guy yeah. All right. I don’t

Scott Scarano

have too much in the line of jeez, that’s probably that’s where that’s where it ends at last time. We

Randy Crabtree

did go off piste and non stop Well,

Scott Scarano

I live in I live in the piece I swim in peace.

Randy Crabtree

Sounds peace and peace. Well, it depends on what pool you’re hanging out at. I guess.

Scott Scarano

Don’t let me get there. Let me go there. Pools and showers. I don’t want to I don’t want to get too crazy on this show. All right.

Randy Crabtree

Well, well, but so let’s go back then to county high and the rebranding from and I know we wanted to talk about this bracket. We’re gonna get to the bracket because this is really cool. Something you’re doing. But before we talk to the bracket, let’s talk about the branding of what this content hub is because it did start us on the CPAs and you’ve got this whole rebrand now that you I mean, all of these things you’re saying it is all tying in to this brand. Are you the stranding expert? How do you have these ideas? Where do you get your knowledge from and what are you doing with it? That’s a great question. So lots of questions. Actually

Scott Scarano

a mom, my mom has always been a brand person, she’s always had different little things going on, like different side hustles are different. I remember growing up and she had me and my brother do our handwriting in letters like paint and crayon and Mark, you know, Crayola markers. And we did the whole alphabet and she created fonts for that early 90s did this and sold them as Kid bag. So she would package them in little like sandwich bags, like the CDs for the fonts and sell them and like kids artwork and stuff and it ended up on album covers like Joan Osborne, her album cover relish is my handwriting on there and paint and darker so if you go look that up Joan Osborne there’s a few others too. Like Crayola used it for a while before you could just download fonts everywhere like this was like people would have to buy fonts in different unique scenarios. So all throughout growing up my mom’s always been a brand person. She had a company called Brand Express once and honestly I don’t even know what it did is she didn’t know either was like a social media type thing. But you know, it wasn’t making any money but she’s she’s always been had an eye for that kind of stuff. And I guess I just kind of priest predisposed to it. I’ve had to think for branding ever since I started studying that and learning more about Apple, how Apple does their branding and just companies like that I look look to as a source of as a guide. But I didn’t do a reprint and also like you mentioned sons of CPAs. So as a CPA has never went away it’s now just evolved into this like the sons had to graduate middle school or going to high school so we had three seasons of sons of CPAs that’s the three years of middle school. Accounting high is only going to last for years. really gonna be accounting you in four years. All right, all of this work that I’m putting into it. It probably will still live as its own brand but my focus is going to go to accounting you are going to graduate high school to like I’m still Arrested Development I’m still stuck in that high school age. Act like a teenager act like a toddler like that’s a little toddler a little toddler Yeah, that’s my that’s my rap name. I’m evolving the rap name to actually I can never stick to one name and always it always ends up like evolving or getting a little bit more mature right so little toddlers gonna grow up and so he’s gonna be well a little little toddler is going to grow into OKR that that might be the name I go with in the business world OKR okay rapper

Randy Crabtree

I saw okay rapper and you’re I think LinkedIn or something already so that’s already evolving from okay rapper to okay or huh?

Scott Scarano

Yeah, well, that’s it, I want to go buy something and then it means something else, right? Like a double entendre. Okay. Our objectives and key results. People see that, you know, KPIs OKRs and then like, Oh, he’s an OKR. Yeah. I’m going okay rapper like, that’s the sort of the underhanded, like, self deprecating type stuff.

Randy Crabtree

You’re the best accounting rapper that I know. That’s,

you might be the only one, you know,

Randy Crabtree

I wasn’t gonna say that

Scott Scarano

might be the only one you know. But still, like that’s that’s also like, you know, The Unique CPA, right? You got to be the unique in something you got to be different, right? So yeah, so the accounting high brand evolved into this, I put a lot of time and money and effort into this rebrand. So the packaging is right, so everything looks good on the outside before we’re ready for primetime. And we were gonna have a big come out party, first quarter of the year. And I was brainstorming with Byron Patrick, who is helping me now to counting Hi, we do ah times. So counting High Times on Fridays, that’s the so again, it’s just all just evolving, right? It’s so I like to ah times because it looks like New York Times ah times. And then there’s the subliminal like High Times that used to be a magazine. So I kind of had time. So we were brainstorming all of my ideas over the past year. And you know, I’m an idea person. Oh, yeah. of ideas. Yeah. And we’ll go through this list. And then somewhere along the line, he’s like, we could do a bracket challenge. And now I was two away from from bringing that one up. So he mentioned it before I could even get to it. And we both basically were symbiotic, like, all the ideas just poured out because I’ve been thinking about this for a while. But I just wasn’t ready for it. Like I didn’t have enough reach. I didn’t know enough people to make this big. I want this to be the biggest thing like of all platforms, all accounting, anybody with an accounting audience, anything that we use as accountants to make our accounting life better, which this is what this brand evolves to after accounting you its accounting life, right? That’s what I figured in high accounting view accounting life. So anything that makes our accounting life better, we’re gonna do this every year. This is our first year we’re doing it. It is the ultimate bracket challenge think NCAA Tournament. We’re going with March Madness, just so people kind of recognize it and know what it is. Even though we’re in February. We’ve been calling it March Madness, but it’s the accountant bracket challenge. So that’s a B, C, right? You’re gonna love this. So now I’m just going with ABC Aptus. As people start to recognize it, they’ll see that eventually it’s going to be ABC 123.

Randy Crabtree

Okay, wait, yes. Why?

Scott Scarano

Because we’re going to have the top three in every category, prestigious awards. So we’re going to have an award ceremony or graduation ceremony after the tournament for the winners of each respective category. Right. So there’s going to be at least eight different categories that we’re everybody’s voting on ranking right now, where the nomination phase, right, you’re getting ready to ask me a question. So let’s, let’s start there. Yeah, well, because we’re

Randy Crabtree

kind of getting ahead of ourselves a little. So let’s set it up first, a little bit. So what is the bracket and then we’ll go into the after, you know, this is the awards, and this is an exciting, oh, this is believe me? When you put this out there. I’m like, This is awesome. And then I was extremely jealous. I didn’t come up with the idea.

Scott Scarano

Like when you’re well on your way, you’ve been our biggest supporter of this so far. Yeah,

Randy Crabtree

I think it’s fun. And so let’s set the stage with this. It’s a bracket but now I’m a little confused. Because is it multiple brackets? Or is it one bracket? Because you said there’s eight categories? Well,

Scott Scarano

now my head’s on the 123. And the award ceremony. We haven’t even done the tournament yet. Let’s do the award ceremony. Yeah. So that’s, that comes later. So right now we’re in the nomination phase. And we’ve created an app where you can log in, you can go to bracket dot accounting high.com, or text ABC to 33339. And that is where you go into nominate your top five things that make your accounting life better. So rapidness obviously, it’s apps. Obviously, it’s programs that you use at your firm. It’s things that make your accounting life better. It’s podcast that you listen to The Unique CPA, you go in there nominate, you can write The Unique CPA or Unique CPA, nominate Unique CPA, you can nominate cloud accounting podcast, you can nominate accounting. Hi, but I don’t think that we’re eligible. I think there’s a conflict of interest there. I don’t think we could be in our own tournament, but the vote nominees, so podcast, communities, accounting communities, like I can think of a handful, but I know that there’s more I know, Facebook groups, there’s all kinds of accounting communities. So we have a category for those we have categories for, you know, Bill, pay apps, or back of house apps, front of house apps, client facing apps. So we’re gonna categorize all the apps into their proper segments. And each segment is going to have a top three like the most nominated of each segment, and we’re gonna give those awards away. But we’re also competing to be the winner of the bracket challenge everything. Yeah, and that’s so the nomination phase is just going to kind of determine who makes it into the bracket. We’re how But to get at least 1000 to 5000 people participating in this. So so we actually have a spread of the entire industry. And we’re exposed to things that are outside of our bubble too. And so the more people that come in and nominate their favorite accounting things, the more exposure we’ll have to everything. And it won’t just be our lists, because we want the ultimate lists made from the people, for the people by the people, right? We don’t want some top down list where you’ve got one or two editors that are determining who makes it in there. We want the people voting for their lists. So we’re going to start making the votes public, and the results public. So everybody can see who’s where everybody’s at. And that’s this is going to be you know, for the people by the people. On March 10. We’re going to have the Selection Sunday, just like the actual tournament, where you take the regular season the conference championships and determine the bracket

Randy Crabtree

is that the same Sunday as the the the NCAA,

Scott Scarano

we might just call it selection Saturday, I don’t know like right selection Friday, fun for adding, we’ll come up with something fun for it. It’s, you know, this is evolving as we go. But the whole objective is going to be figuring out where everybody’s placed in their seating. So for the nomination round, it’s who makes it into the bracket. And then what’s their seat. So they’re who they’re going up against. And, you know, kind of planning it so we have was teeing it up to be a really dynamic Final Four, that’ll that’ll be dealt by the time we get there. Once all the brackets are set, people go back into the app. Oh, let me mention the raffle tickets to Yes, I was gonna say, Yep, the whole point of people going in and nominating is they’re gonna get raffle tickets to win the big prizes. So we’re giving away trips, I want to give away a trip to Italy, I want to take one golden ticket from expensive as Italy trip and give it away as this. I’ve asked them already. They haven’t denied or they haven’t said no to giving a trip away. But I also probably not, they’re probably not going to be able to do because it’s so close to the actual event. And there’s a lot of planning that goes into it. But we might do Hawaii, we’ve got a potential sponsor that’s about to be signed up, and they will fund the trip. We’ve got a lot of ideas for a lot of giveaways throughout the tournament too. But I’ll get there. So raffle tickets. Yes, you can see raffle tickets. If you go log in to yours and you click your tickets, you can actually view the numbers and the actual tickets and their little red ticket stubs just like you would at a regular high school raffle. So we’ve got the raffle tickets that you get. So each nomination, you get five raffle tickets, each testimonial li you leave for those platforms, you get another five. So right out the gate, you can end up with 25 raffle tickets, we’re giving away a lot of tickets, we’re gonna have a lot of prizes. During the tournaments, voting begins, you log in, and you vote on each matchup, you get a ticket for each matchup that you vote on. And each round the tickets, kind of like when you fill out the NCAA bracket, you get different number of points for each round that you pick correctly. So each round, you vote for this, you get different amount of raffle tickets, we’ll be giving away more. And the final to encourage people to continue voting like this is this is all a big experiment to like how many people are going to be paying attention to this throughout the whole thing. I shouldn’t do find out right? picked out for the people by the people. That’s the winner of the bracket challenge. And they’re going to be crowned winner trophy and everything it’s going to be like the event of the rest of the year. Now we’re going to be talking about results of this. So through the guideposts, we’re going to have top three in every category and go deep on those products or those podcasts or those platforms and talk about them and share through them. But it’s we can limit ourselves to just talking about three for each category, because those are the ones that were voted. So the next year, we end up doing the same thing, we have to turn them in again and then hopefully it just gets bigger every year. So this is like so that’s why it’s the ABC 123 Right accountant bracket challenge top three awards that are gonna be given away in each segment in each category. So it’ll be kind of like the G two award, you know, G two, they review software platforms, and they give away little prizes, or little footers for their for the website and the notes. So we’re gonna make little graphics, okay? First place, second place third place, and give those out too. So there’ll be little graphics that you get exclusive for winning.

Randy Crabtree

So I can if I get top three, or if we as a unique see big a top three, then I can get a little logo that you create, I can put on my email and all that kind of stuff

Scott Scarano

as I don’t look at that completely free. You won’t even have to pay for it.

Randy Crabtree

Wow. And then the winners obviously there’s gonna be voting each week. Are you doing this like the NCAA Thursday and Friday game Saturday, Sunday game so that you just vote for certain ones.

Scott Scarano

Okay. All right. And so, we’re gonna have a little roundtable where we discuss the matchups hopefully if we get some big, you know, matchups, we’re gonna have the People from those plant representatives from those platforms on an episode pitching and making their case to see who should win, right. So for the big matchups, we maybe have the founders of each one on an episode. And they get to talk about their solution. And, you know, how are you going to vote up from a podcast versus a GL app? Maybe, right? You know, like, who’s, what’s the better and so like, you gotta get those perspectives from the creators, and also from the people. So it’s gonna be fun. I’m super excited about this. But I’ve already got my eyes on the award ceremony now. So I’m already kind of planning that in my head, and how that’s gonna look and who’s going to be invited and where it’s going to be. And I want to announce this, because I think is going to be super dope, too. So it’s going to be like the unconference. So you know, we’ve got all these accounting conferences, that they put on a kind of web, I’ll use that as an example. You know, there’s all kinds of speakers booths, and like, that was one of my favorite conferences, but it wasn’t because of the sessions. It wasn’t because of the booth, it was just because of the people there and how everything was sprawled out. So I want to throw a conference that’s similar to that, but with no agenda. No speakers, no booths, just a ceremony and a concert. That’s it,

Randy Crabtree

a ceremony and camaraderie and hanging out with people.

Scott Scarano

It’s all the right people. And it’s, there’s no separation between accountants and vendors, everybody’s there equally. Everybody’s there for the conference. Nobody’s there really trying to sell anything. Everybody’s do just to better themselves and to learn. And that’s, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing throughout Throughout my travels, you know, with you. I’ve seen you a lot of different places this year. And you know, I’m not there for the content. I’m there for the camaraderie. Yep. Right. We can go sees today.

Randy Crabtree

Yeah, there you go. Content.

Scott Scarano

camaraderie. Conference. There you go. Yeah. So that’s going to be the accounting high graduation ceremony or award ceremony. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to call it. But I’ve already got an idea of where it’s going to be and and all that. But

Randy Crabtree

when when’s it going to be? Oh,

Scott Scarano

thank you for asking. 111123

Randy Crabtree

weighed 111125 and 23? Ah, look at that. All right. And why? Just because the 123?

Scott Scarano

Yep. All right, and enough time to plan. And what day of the week is that way? I don’t know, I have no idea. It’s going to revolve around that. I mean, that’s the sort of the point is, there isn’t going to be an agenda, there isn’t going to be a whole bunch of speakers or anything. So the planning is going to be more or less like, realistic, like making this realistic. I want to do it in Hawaii, because the logo would look so dope. If it was two eyes. So the 11 in 1111 23, could be part of the Hawaii, the two eyes is the 11th. Three, but it might be too expensive. And I don’t think people are gonna like, you know, that’s a that’s a really big trip. If

Randy Crabtree

if people are paying to come to your event that might keep some people out, you know, their own airfare and everything. So

Scott Scarano

well, we’re only limiting it to 123 people. All right. So that’s a lot, you know, I know, but it’s 123. And

Randy Crabtree

then on to three, I got it. Yeah. So what we need to do is talk about this to see if this is something that maybe we could tie in with The Unique CPA Conference. But it sounds like you’ve got your own free standing.

Scott Scarano

It could be it could be but this is like the whole the whole point, you’re gonna have speakers, you’re gonna have content, you’re gonna have things going on. I don’t want any of that stuff, right? I don’t want an agenda. I just want a ceremony, like sort of like a wedding type ceremony where you have speeches and like that, like actually giving away legit awards. What carbon did for carbon X is sort of my inspiration for this. And what Jason Blumberg did, deeper weekend is sort of my inspiration for this they had a limited about about 100 people that each one of those respectively, and tickets were about 1000 to 1200 for those. So I was thinking the ticket price for this is $1,204.56 Right? So 123456 Yeah, got it.

Randy Crabtree

I had to do my math real quick. All right. But that’s about what the price

Scott Scarano

was for these other ones anyway, so I’m basing this on reality but also in my own fantasy like 123 ABC World. So all right,

Randy Crabtree

well the cool thing about

Scott Scarano

that more than the bracket the bracket itself is what I got to focus on I can’t focus on that focus thing has got to be got to be successful first for that to even work right. So go in there nominate your favorites, bracket.accountinghigh.com text ABC to 33339 You can tell I didn’t pick the number you could tell I didn’t pick them up. Don’t don’t. I had no no, they’re saying that. So

Randy Crabtree

you kind of do at least like authority dash 12345 Get your head going there.

Scott Scarano

For the I don’t even know why we need a texting I mean bracket.accountinghigh.com is easy enough. So

Randy Crabtree

it is I’ve done both ways. I’ve got to it both ways. In effect. I’ve got my login page up here on my phone right now. I currently have 52 It gets. Oh, yeah. So I need to nominate one more of my favorites, which even though the accounting high cannot win, we’re thinking, I’m still gonna nominate, we

Scott Scarano

got some votes. And already we got some testimonials and making me cry. I was reading him on on air. So, yeah, but yeah, I mean, like, the, the whole point of this is I want to decentralize it. I don’t want it to be about us, I want to host a tournament, but I don’t want this to be our platform of like, look at us. We’re a pod, like, I don’t want it to be about that I want to showcase and highlight everybody else that makes our lives better. And this was the best way to do that. Like, this was the way to gather up. You know, 64 is a lot of different platforms to put in one turn. Oh, yeah. I’m just like, uh, you know, I’m amazed that we have so many nominees already, like, we already have 307 Different things nominated,

Randy Crabtree

really, I was gonna ask there are seven different and how many nominations? Overall do you have at this point?

Scott Scarano

I don’t know. Because not everybody finished the nominations. So we don’t have a whole lot of students enrolled. So in order to do this, you’re enrolling as a student at accounting high, which is free, you don’t have to pay to be a student, it’s a public school, right? You’re enrolled to be a student. And that’s what gets you alerted to all of these things that I talked about. So the guide when, you know, the Gazette, the ah, TV, all of these things. So, again, right now, just a podcast, you can listen to our updates, ah, times, accounting High Times every Friday, we also have plenty of other episodes and other content there. You know, this, if your listeners ever checked it out? That’s dope. I’m having a lot of fun with this stuff.

Randy Crabtree

Yeah, it’s the only disappointing thing about accounting is that I have not been a guest on it. And so what you have before the rebrand,

Scott Scarano

okay, so you’re gonna be on after, so our website’s live, too. And I know that you’ve seen our website, because we have our yearbook. And our faculty, I did see that we’re going to work out a way to allow anybody, any listener or anybody that’s, you know, that wants to be a part of this, to apply to be a faculty at accounting, I, but we started with our founding faculty, I started with some of the people that I go way back with the people I’ve known for years. And like, the ones that I see is like, it has helped out along the way, too. And it’s been like, I get floored by the, just the amount of like, excitement people get around. Some that was just came out of my head, like, you know, I can remember where I was in the moment when I thought of this accounting. Hi, it was David Leary the night before said you should, you should change the name to I’m not high on accounting, like as the double entendre of Hi, and hi. And I didn’t like that there was something there, but it wasn’t that. And then the next day, I was with a handful of people. And I was just, I just blurted out, people were talking about something else. And I’m just sitting there in my own head, just like thinking, and then I just said, accounting Hi. Like, that was, that was like the dream. That was the like, moment, that was the aha moment. And accounting high Academy is the actual aha moment. So you hinted at it. But that’s the private school. So ah, a Aha, the aha moment is the accounting high Academy. That’s going to be the private school, we can get there. I’m not ready to like, really promote that.

Randy Crabtree

And is this gonna be some kind of education platform for the industry, then is that the academy tuned,

Scott Scarano

stay tuned for Ron Baker’s episode, because he’s the principal of accounting. Hi, we don’t have that on the website yet. But he is he’s formally accepted the role of principle of accounting high. And he was in our first faculty meeting at the faculty lounge was a really, I’m so excited like this is I’ve already got some ideas for where you fit in, and how you fit into this whole picture. Because you’re also like, some form of authoritative figure here. Like you’re, you’re older, you got the gray hairs, you know, I could see you being a professor of some of some sorts. So that’s

Randy Crabtree

my role I educate so and I’m just honored that I’m even being considered for some form of interaction with accounting Hi, whether it’s faculty or education or advisor gonna be

Scott Scarano

I think it’s going to be psychology class, or some type of mental health type leave. That’s one of my passions stick for a little while. Yeah. So so we’ll see. We’ll see where that get turns into. But yeah, this is this is what energizes me these days, we were going to talk about my firm too, and we can but you know, the accounting high stuff is for everybody in this profession. And that’s where my heart has been like sons of CPAs was true. My grandfather was a CPA my dad was a CPA. So like that’s still part of me that’s in my blood is this accounting thing and always has been but man, I got a bug for wanting to do raps now and wanted to entertain and talk and educating is a form of entertainment. Yeah, in a way, like there’s, there’s a there’s a bridge there. And there’s a tight rope balance between being too much entertainment or too much education. And I’m trying to walk that tightrope, and I’m having fun, not falling. Yeah,

Randy Crabtree

no, I think when I’m out educating when I will out, I’m doing it. In fact, I have a webinar here in 40 minutes. It’s always about being entertaining as well, because man, there’s so you could be so boring, be the most informed person on a subject in the world. But if you can’t, you know, communicate that in a way that’s entertaining, no one’s gonna listen. So I love that. I love that idea. Alright, so I like I said before, I am extremely excited about this brand. And I think it’s genius idea that you did out that I’ve seen people getting excited on Twitter and, and LinkedIn, and just even text messages from people that this is really exciting. The one thing that comes to mind with me then is you do have a firm. Obviously, accounting high is a big emphasis of what you’re doing. And the bracket obviously, being part of that, and just the whole education, content platform, which I think is amazing. I can’t wait to see it evolve. But how has this affected you in the firm? And, you know, how is the firm continue to, you know, go strong, because I heard you talk you had a really strong year this past year, with you dividing your time. Last year,

Scott Scarano

my life, I didn’t know like, all the stuff I do is sort of like I’m flying by the seat of my pants could sink experiment to? Well, I didn’t know what this podcast was going to turn into. When I started doing it. I didn’t know how much it would change my life. And we talked about that on Ron’s episode. Like, this was a three hour marathon I had with Ron and I had to split up into two episodes. So amazing. Stay tuned and buckle up. That’ll be fun. But we talked about like, how much it changes you you become a better person, an active listener, like, you know, through all these I know, it’s changed you to like, since you’ve been you went all in, you’re going parallel with me with like, the amount of guests that you have on and like all kinds of, and you’ve got guests that I still haven’t been able to get on yet. So this is this is amazing. And I know that you can relate to this is like, so this, this kind of changed my outlook on life changed my outlook on a firm for sure. And I did it because nobody else was doing it. I listened to cloud accounting podcast, and I liked it. But this is different. This is what I’m doing is real people in real time talking about real things about their firm, this isn’t like just just the speaker heads, or just the Ron Baker’s speaking down to firm owners. This is actual firm owners that are, you know, of varying sizes, you know, from solo shows to 15 to 20 people, 250 people plus, right, like, all in the you know, I would say mostly it’s like the cloud space or in our cloud bubble. Because there are a lot of people that just don’t listen to podcasts that aren’t out in our world. But you’re also bridging that gap to I mean, you you speak to a lot of the traditional firms that are in cloud. Yep. But I’ll I’ll back up and say that this has kind of changed my life. And and like I said, it evolved from sons of CPAs, to now this content hub where it was just a podcast. And now it’s accounting. Hi, what about my firm, right? Like, I can trace back to that same day. When I had the idea for accounting, hi, it wasn’t just Dave Leary saying, you know, I’m not high on accounting. It was also I got a call, because I was trying to exit Padget like Paget’s a franchise. I didn’t want to be a franchisee anymore, because it’s just not me. Maybe it’s my ego getting away. Maybe I wanted some ownership over what I had, you know, I pay them a percentage for royalties, but they’ve not contributed to the, what I’ve done and help my firm, since I’ve been a franchisee like, they set a foundation for what we did and how we do it. But the growth and everything that I kind of, I guess expected from a franchisor never happened they had a lot of before Jeff Phillips was there, they just had a lot of stuff going on. And I could talk publicly about this, I guess, or else I’ll get in trouble for that, too. And I don’t know how but that’s that’s this is like the dilemma that I had. And that’s why I wanted to if I had a firm of my own, then I could promote it, then I could really feel passionate about it and be involved again. But that was the day when they said no, you can’t leave because it’s not a good look. It won’t look good. For the other franchisees like they’re supposed to just let me buy out like they’ve let others do that before. But because I’m like a prominent one within the franchise and like I was the youngest one to grow as big as I did. And like you said big ego thing. You’re feeding my ego throughout that whole process to like the biggest firm or franchise in the system. And we did things absolutely differently than everybody else. And now everybody’s doing them the way we were not because of why we did it but because they just caught up with the times. And so I needed something for me. And I didn’t connect it that day when I came up with the accounting idea but that was like So again, it’s like selfish maybe or it’s it’s an ego Do thing but it’s also just like, you want to grow something of your own. And I’ve been growing this firm, but it doesn’t have my name on it or a name that I even made up. Like I love to make up names. And I couldn’t make up a name for my firm. I can’t even change that. So. But I also needed to get out of the firm like it was, it was a journey that we went on through EOS. And I was set to be in just the visionary seat. And the last thing I had to get out of was sales. So I was straddling doing the podcast, and I was still doing sales, and still running some things, but pretty much out of the firm altogether. And even with sales, I was making things harder for the team, every time I was involved in the review, or in the actual work process, I made things harder for the team. Anytime I get my hands in there, I muddy things up, I mess things up, I get to tunneled in on the details and I get in my own way I get in their way. So I got out of the work and everybody’s happier. But now I’m in sales, just sales. And I’m pulling in a ton of clients, and then they can’t keep up. And then it’s like a pull into the wrong type of clients too. And I’m just not like doing what they’re telling me to do. Focusing. Alright, not focusing at all. So then I got out of sales, my management team is handling sales now. And I’m lonely, I got nothing to do like I they’re happier than they ever have been. Because you’re out of the way. What Yes, absolutely out of the way. Like, everything was everything’s better at the firm there, they had their best year as as a firm too. And so did I last year. But that’s also because of like this separation. And obviously, I’m not taking that the wrong way. I know that I miss things up. Like anytime I get involved, I know that I get a little too excited about it, I get to tunneled in, or then I want to change things and I’m always like, you know, always changing stuff, I was trying to make it better, always tweaking it. And it’s good the way it is you don’t have to touch it. Like that’s, that’s what I get back from them all the time. So, so things are good. Like I have a management team. And through Eos, we were able to get me in just the visionary seat. And that’s why I can do both of these because, you know, it doesn’t require more than like, maybe an hour a week, a couple hours a week, just meeting with the management team and just going over stuff. If they need me to provide help with some higher leverage items. I can do that. But otherwise, they’re good. And the operation is running.

Randy Crabtree

And everybody’s happy. I mean, is there going to be a My concern is a rebellion that okay, Scott’s not here. We don’t need him anymore. I mean, you still get this visionary role? How do you balance that with,

Scott Scarano

like, the way it is, right now, it’s probably not sustainable. I think you’re right. Like, I feel like, I’m always afraid of that I’m always guilty. I always like feel like they’re gonna resent me, like, and I, you know, they see the numbers too, they see how much I’m making and how much I made last year, there’s gonna be a course correction there, like they want to get paid more. Right? Right. So we’re gonna figure that out, I know, we’re working on getting my management team, they’re gonna buy in for some equity, I don’t want to call it partners, I think it’s just gonna be the way we structure it. And they have part ownership of the firm. So they sharing in the profits, the sharing and the wins. And it’s a huge mindset shift that comes with that, once you have any kind of ownership, all of a sudden, everything that they’re doing day to day, now they looking at differently. They may empathize with the the way I am more, because I’m still tied to all this stuff. Like it’s still affects me. We had somebody leave, he gave us like four months notice. But he went to work for his dad. And like, that hurt me, even though I’m not involved in everything. It’s like, that was another like, chip away at my, at my stability of like, well, now what happens like this could all crumble tomorrow. We don’t have an office that we go to, there’s nothing physical here. It’s just everybody’s like, you know that they’ve just agreed to show up and do what they’re doing every day. They all could just leave tomorrow. And then what then it’s like, so I don’t I don’t even know how to like, how to talk about all this stuff, right? It’s fragile.

Randy Crabtree

Well, maybe your faculty can give advice on how you’re gonna move forward with the doing both. Yeah, and keeping both happy?

Scott Scarano

Well, I know that I gotta like, make sure that I pay enough attention to that too, because it’s kind of like kids, you know, I gotta pay attention to my kids. I’m at home all the time. But I’m always doing other things, you know, like, I got to make sure I pay attention to them, and give them the right amount of like care and help that they need. So it’s not just all in or all out, I tend to go to the extremes. I gotta figure out some kind of balance and middle there to just keep my hand on the pulse on everything. So I’m trying to build out this accounting high into an actual legit business like and platform. And I think that’s why it’s that’s sort of like the entrepreneur bug. And the startup bug, that’s what this has turned into, like sort of like a startup.

Randy Crabtree

So So then with your principle in place with Ron Baker, are you looking at a subscription model then for counting it down the road? Absolutely.

Scott Scarano

It already is. It already is. So we talked about the the private school that’s going to be a monthly I gotta figure out what’s the value prop there because it’s is it education or is it not? Coaching and mentorship is it? Is it just a form of community, but it is it also like a way for professional development are we going to be given CPE through that, too, like, there’s a lot of things that we could be doing to enrich the accountants lives, but what’s going to make them want to pay $500 a month to be a member of this, right? It’s like a very prestigious private school, right. So it’s going to be initiation fee of maybe like $5,000, just just to be able to join and then monthly dues of like, kind of like a country club 500 a month to be part of it was sort of like EO, right. So like entrepreneurs, organizations, we’re gonna have field trips and in person events for the different cohorts we have. So I’m thinking like, classes have very small class size of like 12 to 26 people, each year that we induct into the private school, and we have to take applications for them to even be allowed in there. So that’s a pure subscription model. The public school is also a peer subscription model, but that’s funded through sponsors, right. So anybody that wants to get in front of more accountants, if Tri-Merit wanted to sponsor it, we have different subscription levels. And Tri-Merit, as the specialty tax experts, could be the exclusive specialty tax experts, partner, PR partner, whatever you want to call it, at accounting high, where that’s what we talk about, when we talk about it, we have a certain number of mentions per month, and we’re just aligned and full partnerships. So it’s not one and done ads, like I used to do. It’s full blown sponsorship partners, right? We’re actually

Randy Crabtree

looking at that same, you and I seem to be somewhat parallel, I think with some of the things that, you know, he might have gone past me in the hole, not a race concept of accounting. It’s another race, but we’re, we’re The Unique CPA has become its own thing. And it’s, you know, now webinars, in addition to podcast, and that’s a conference and it’s, you know, a platform for education. We’re building that out right now, as we speak to that, you know, right now, it’s a link on Tri-Merit website, it’s going to become its own, just content hub. So, so we’re not racing, but we have similar ideas, you just probably have better ideas than me Don’t say better

Scott Scarano

either. Like, again, it’s just like, we join forces and everything becomes stronger, like the, you know, we work together in a lot of ways, it’s separate, but together, but it’s like, you know, everybody builds each other up, and I can inspire you to do something you can inspire me by through the things that you’re doing. And you already have, like, all throughout this whole journey that we’ve both been on, is dope. Like, I I’m having so much fun with this. And I think, you know, there isn’t that much out there that’s like this, like, there’s, I can’t think of anything, that’s a hybrid of all the things that I like, you know, like, I’m taking and copying, you can call it copying or just like, grabbing things from five different platforms that I know of that are successful. And it’s nothing is exactly the same as any any of those five, it’s just a hybrid of them. Hi, brid, the academy.

Randy Crabtree

You hear the word guy, the initial guy, the word guy, and I think you and I kind of have the same overall theme is just figuring out ways to make our profession better. And if we can move forward by tools moving forward, that better forward is better in my mind. Well,

Scott Scarano

yes, but it’s not nothing really inherently wrong. Dave Barrett said this on his episode like this, you know, change implies that there’s something wrong with it, but it’s worked like whatever we are doing in this profession. It’s worked, but it does need to evolve. Like there’s definitely cracks in the old system. Yeah, Baker has been trying to tear that down forever, right, you know, time based, everything. There’s a lot of things about our profession and professional services in general, that need to change, and how do we have a better impact, and share what we’ve learned, and it’s through these platforms, and it’s through the one to many podcasts and other types of content. So we can share that with the people that don’t have the, you know, have the privilege of knowing us, right, like seeing us often in the conferences, they can hear that there’s, you know, so there’s, there’s ways to have impact. And I think that’s, that’s also part of our journeys, too, is we hit certain points in our lives where we found our purpose, and we found what we’ve been put on here to do, and we found our passion. And when you mix those two together, it’s a pretty potent passion and purpose can be very potent. Potential, like there’s a lot of

Randy Crabtree

down the road again, nice, but you can’t help yourself

now on this podcast.

Randy Crabtree

just keeps going.

Scott Scarano

I promise. I’ll stop like, I promise. Yeah, we can get to more some more practical points here. So all right, well, let’s professionally.

Randy Crabtree

Alright, so there’s two requirements on this show. We educate and we laugh. So I think we’re getting both of those out of the way today. So for sure All right, so we probably need to start to wrap up. But one thing I wanted to talk about, because this was so much fun, and it was awesome to, to have you out there as August when we did the live podcast, Unique CPA, and you co hosted that with me, that was just such an awesome time. And I appreciate so much you being out there because, you know, spending an hour 45 minutes talking to different guests by my own when never worked. And so it was just, you were the perfect co host to have out there. And so yeah. But that was a lot of fun. And that’s the kind of stuff I want to try to continue to do, as well as just like you mentioned the whole, you know, camaraderie, get together, have fun, but learn, but maybe not learn in the school setting the education setting just by sharing, right, that kind of the whole Yeah,

Scott Scarano

well, that’s sort of like, you know, me putting my middle finger up to the authority is this accounting high isn’t a real school, you know, it’s not a real education setting. It’s meant to be I know, I know, right? But it’s meant to be fun. And like, take that take that context of education and put that as like the branding on the outside, but on the inside is just a big like, you know, it’s it’s a hodgepodge of things right now. But it’s sort of like we were doing it, we were figuring out our focus, we’re finding our like, our ultimate platform, another P like, platform, what’s our purpose? Like, again, back to the purpose, but like, what are we out here? Doing? Like, are we educating? Are we moving the industry forward? Are we just talking to people, so we’re figuring it out?

Randy Crabtree

All right. Well, I think it’s awesome. And I think that I think I got it. I

Scott Scarano

gotta say, though, that was one of the best trips of last year, I went up to Chicago, but the timing was perfect. The weather was great. You had a lot of people show up and that bar, the temple, that was a temple. Yeah, it was beautiful. I love that was so so much fun. And we were tucked away. I remember the paint the painting on the wall, like the fox, it was just like, it was such a cool setting. And the way you had us, you know, recording in there, but then everybody else was out talking. It wasn’t like they had to sit and watch us. So it was all happening at the same time. And nothing took away, you know, wasn’t like, Oh, now I gotta go record. I had a lot of fun recording. But then when I was back out there, jumped into the conversations and the beer, and we jumped into the beer. Yeah. So I had I had some beer, but mostly I had my little puffs. It’s legal there now. Right? Like, so. Illinois, legal. Correct. So,

Randy Crabtree

so this has been, I don’t want to stop. I want to keep going. I love having you on. I just love talking to you. Other opportunities, we’ll have other do it again,

Scott Scarano

we all of our conversations are always great. But this time, I feel like I’d dominated the conversation that we just talked about, well,

Randy Crabtree

I wanted you to dominate, cuz this is such an intriguing thing to me. And again, I kind of feel like we’re doing the similar thing, similar paths. And so just seeing what you’re doing and knowing that we’re kind of

Scott Scarano

unique, you’re unique. I’ve just the basic, you know, little high school over here. This is where we all do things in our own way, in our own unique way to there’s it’s impossible for us to do things exactly the same. Even when we both did, you know, set out to do the exact same thing, it’s ultimately going to turn out differently. Yeah, everybody’s got their own unique perspective.

Randy Crabtree

But yours is so cool, from the standpoint that you have the faculty, you have the custodian, you have the attendees, you know, you’re signing up for accounting high, you’re gonna have a graduation in four years, you have this whole concept that is still evolving, but at least that’s there were The Unique CPA and we have different silos around even though that’s probably not the right word, but different ways that we put content out there. But I just like that whole concept of this is what we are, it’s based on this high school experience.

Scott Scarano

So it’s, it’s held that I live in, like I This is torture, because I have so many ideas like that, like you’re saying, and so many of them, I can’t even talk about because nobody’s there yet. Nobody has the context that I have going on. So I have more than I haven’t even mentioned that I can’t. And it’s torture, because I don’t even know if these things actually are realistic. And if it really could happen, like I already talked about this event that we might have, right? I just don’t know if that’s realistic or not, like all the points that I said are all the things that are grounded in reality, and that I can actually compare to something else. But I got this big vision for these things. And who’s going to want to go to a conference with no speakers and no agenda. Right?

Randy Crabtree

Oh, you’re the Ron Baker of that you come out you’re the agent change agent, you come up with the new ideas. You’re the and this is the way things are going to evolve

Scott Scarano

the rounds. You said his his idols are the we talked about Greg kite a lot. And that was his hero, right? And he also mentioned Jason bloomer. And those are two big inspirations for me big inspirations and I feel like in a way I’m kind of hybrid in both of them in what I’m doing hybrid in a lot of people but you know, the whole thrival and accounting Hi, Academy AHA are going to be very similar. And the events that we do, it’s similar but very different to, but also Greg kite he’s taken stand up and comedy and brought it to the accounting world. And he’s a genius the way he does it. Right. I’m kind of doing it, but I’m doing it with rap. Yeah, you know, and jokes like my latest rap, I’m actually working on another one right now. I meant to make a point there, though. Like, it’s like, Greg took the stand up and brought it to the accounting world. And they did a podcast for together for like, almost 10 years. And I feel like I’ve taken that as inspiration for what I’m doing. And I just realized that yesterday actually, like, the fact that there’s rap stuff. You know, the last event I was at, I performed the rap for all the accountants there. And it seemed to go pretty well. I mean, like, you know, I’m just kind of putting myself out there and saying, I want to do my rap before we start the karaoke, like they really want to hear. And so it’s not like I’m getting scheduled to do these things. Now. I wanted to do it at your live event, but we couldn’t figure out a way to get the music on. So I had no it’s like a poetry session,

Randy Crabtree

which was cool. It was awesome. You brought tears to my eyes.

Scott Scarano

I still haven’t finished that one, though. I’m still I’m actually going to start working on that one again. That was only the first verse of that rap. All right. So the rap I’m working on now is going to be a fun one. And take DMX is ruff. Ryders anthem, you may have heard it you may not have probably not you, maybe your listeners, I don’t know. Probably not me, the DMX RUFF RYDERS. Anthem, it’s going to be the tax accountants, Anthem, all about tax season accounting. So I’ve got some of the heavy hitters on Twitter that are helping me with the content that I’m going to work into the rap. So I’ve got Logan Graf, Adam Markowitz, Mary McDonald’s, Brina, cook, and Nicole Davis all helping me out contributing some lines in there, and I’m gonna work it

Randy Crabtree

all again, like no, I have FOMO just so you know, so you want

to contribute with that?

Randy Crabtree

No, no, that’s all right. Have you tax

Scott Scarano

people I’m looking for like more of the people that are like, already very outspoken, that are very, like, big on Twitter. And they have a lot of followers and a lot of, you know, a lot of a lot of action on their tweets, a lot of right engagement. So

Randy Crabtree

with that being said, we’re gonna do this again, before the years up, for sure. I’m actually pushing this episode out quick. So we’re recording February 7, this might be out as early as the 14th. So

this day, we’re gonna have Valentine’s Day Special.

Randy Crabtree

Yes. And then you and I were getting on a zoom call and drink a glass of wine together and

Scott Scarano

celebrate. It’s gonna be so sweet. Yeah, don’t forget me on Valentine’s Day.

Randy Crabtree

I’ll actually be David. I’ll be at David Leary’s house on Valentine’s Day.

Scott Scarano

You actually found it phone being on that episode. I’ve never been on their show yet. Yeah. David Leary has still hasn’t joined my show yet. Really?

Randy Crabtree

Yeah, just send them a link to get on ours. I’m going to be on there as next the 15th. We’re going to be recording so the day after Valentine’s Day. So we’ll we’ll keep that in mind. Now. I’ll see if you make the cut to Al. So before we close up, then let’s promote the bracket again. How do people put their nominations in and what are the two ways the website and the text for sure. So

Scott Scarano

go to bracket.accountinghigh.com. Very easy. bracket.accountinghigh.com or text ABC to 33339. That’s four threes and a 9, 33339. The cost is eight cents every text so if you want to just go on the website, that’s better to save me save me a dime close to it. But go in there and nominate your top five favorite things. Be sure to nominate The Unique CPA you could put before it or not just Unique CPA or The Unique CPA he’ll get nominated. We will know who it is. Leave a testimonial there too, because you know we could read those on air as well. Nice. nominate your favorite apps nominate GL laminate. You’re the app that changed your life. It could be anything could be notion it could be slack, it could be bill.com or bill you know anything

Randy Crabtree

since the chat GPT getting some votes now.

Scott Scarano

Not yet. But I bet you it will. You could definitely nominate that that’s that would be interesting to see that went in there. Jack Twitter’s been nominated. If I was gonna ask him about that. Yep. Lots of communities nominated text. Twitter’s a decentralized community. That’s like there’s no head of that there’s it’s just there.

Randy Crabtree

Well, so text Twitter put out The call last year that they were going to have a conference in maybe Portland. Oh, yeah. And, and asking for speakers too. So I, I had been communicating. I haven’t heard anything if they’re actually doing it, but I thought it was this. I thought they already had a hotel reserved and everything. Who was they? I don’t know. I can look it up. I could send it to you. But I did get a some Twitter messages from whoever was in charge of this dope. I think they might have their own thing. I’ll look at it afterwards. All right. We’re gonna wrap up. Scott. Again, thank you so much for being here. And I always have a great time talking to you. I haven’t even I don’t even know if I told you this yet. But I’ve been telling everybody, you’re on their advisory committee for our conference. So if I haven’t talked to you about it yet. I’m planning on you being on the advisory committee. All right. All right. So we’ll probably have a meeting as early as next week. But But again, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. We’ll definitely do it again. And I’m going to be given updates on this bracket challenge unless I don’t get enough nominations to make it. If not, then I’m done with it.

Scott Scarano

That’s up to you and it’s up to you. That’s up to you guys to make sure you nominate Unique CPA because I want to see you as the top three of nominee. I’ve announced this. I want to I want to see you guys get the top

Randy Crabtree

three. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. And thanks, everybody for listening today.

Scott Scarano

Yeah, peace out homies.