Mentors Count: Empowering Emerging Accountants with Yuri Kapilovich

Yuri Kapilovich is the Managing Partner of Kapilovich & Associates, LLC. With over a decade of working at some of the largest accounting firm specializing in high net-worth individuals and closely-held companies across many aspects of the tax lifecycle – planning/forecasting, compliance and consulting, Yuri brings his knowledge and expertise to his clients. He has experience in some of the most complex aspects of the tax world and provides consulting and training services to smaller CPA firms to assist with efficiency and growth.

Yuri founded #TheFunCPA movement to change the perception of the accounting industry, and he recently founded Mentors Count to link up-and-coming accountants to experienced voices in the profession.

Transcript:

Hey everyone, thank you for joining us today for another episode of the CPA Life Podcast, where we spend time digging into really what it takes to build a modern-minded, people-centric firm in today’s highly competitive talent landscape of public accounting. And today we’re doing something a little bit different. You know, usually we’re spending time talking to firm leaders, industry insiders, about some of the things that they’re doing to build more modern-minded firms, or what they’re seeing as trends in the industry toward that direction. But today, we’re going to be spending some time digging into a new community that was created by Yuri Kapilovich, who is the managing partner of Kapilovich and Associates. He’s also a podcast host himself. He’s the creator of #TheFunCPA movement and now, adding to that title of responsibilities or baggage that he’s carrying, is the creator of the Mentors Count community. Yuri, thanks for joining us today.

You’re welcome, man. Great to be here again. Thank you for having me on the show. And I think that was pretty good to just go ahead and head out of here with this conversation because you pretty much summed it all up really perfectly and not much else to add. No, I’m just kidding. But thank you. I really appreciate you having me on.

You’re juggling a lot of balls. I think that probably goes well with your personality because you seem to be somebody that likes to keep things moving and keep things moving forward. And so something like Mentors Count is an opportunity for you, not only to continue to move forward with your firm, but also now start to sow into a generation of people that you probably, like I do, see on LinkedIn, see on Reddit with a lot of frustrations, a lot of challenges, a lot of desires to build their career, but at the end of the day, don’t have a place to plug into and say, “Hey, how do I do what I do in a better way, in a better fashion?” So tell everybody a little bit about where this came from, a little bit about your background. I know that we’ve had you on the podcast before, focused on your firm a couple of years ago and kind of catch up a little bit about that, but give me a little bit of a high-level view of where you’ve been and how this has come about.

Yeah. I’ll say this, and I’ll start it by saying this: entrepreneurship—having your own firm—is not for everyone. I say this time and time and time again online, on social media, because all these places online will push it as the solution. It is not. It’s not the solution. It’s not going to necessarily make you happier. In fact, you know, if you were like 85 percent happy at a firm and you go out on your own, you’re not going to get to 100, you might go down to 40 percent happy because of all the hats you have to wear. All of this to say is that it just doesn’t have to suck, it doesn’t have to be a terrible place where you’re working in public accounting, where you’re not learning anything, not getting support, just working raw hours. That’s really, to answer your question, that’s really where it stems from and where it came from, is what I also once had.

You know, back in my day, you know, when I started in accounting, like, I don’t know what it was, but maybe the era or whatever it was, but 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when you joined a firm, people, when you start working with them, they’re like, “Hey, come on, like, come to my office, I’m going to show you, like, the super basics, I’m going to show you this, I’m going to,” they didn’t wait for you to say it, they didn’t look at your tax return and go, “You know, that was terrible,” and then try to do something, it was like, “Hey, right off the bat, let’s talk. Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Let me show you how this works.” That’s huge, and that now is missing, and so, six months ago, you know, this idea came to me, and I started building it out then.

What do you think has happened that has disappeared in that environment, in that culture? And I think that it’s not just accounting, Yuri. I know when I first started in the business, in the recruiting business, I sat across the desk from my manager, who was my mentor and my trainer. And she literally sat there eye to eye and listened to every single call I made, and we dissected it and talked about potential scenarios. And little things like that aren’t done in any business anymore, and I don’t know why that is. I’ve got my hypothesis, but tell me why you think some of that has disappeared in the environment that you grew up in versus what people live through day in and day out today.

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think my take on it, and again, I’ll only speak to accounting obviously, that’s what I know. I think that there was a mentality shift, right? In 2010, when I graduated, me and every single one of my, you know, people who were in the class with me, classmates, whatever, the mentality was, we’re going to go to either Big Four or some of these firms and whatever, and become partners. That was the mentality in school. It wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t even a thought to say, “Oh, we’re just going to go in there and see what it’s like, check it out, learn and dip out at, you know, three to five years in, go switch to another firm.” Tthat was not the mentality, right? And that also aligned with a lot of the firms. Like I was at EY, I was at CBIZ, and people still took me in. These are big firms. They still took me in under their wing, and they taught me, you know, all these things. And again, obviously it depends on the manager. It depends what you have.

Now you fast forward a little bit, we’re getting into 2015, we’re getting into 2018, and then people are starting to, I think, be overwhelmed by the profession. There’s people leaving the profession, there’s—and the pipeline issue is getting worse. And as people leave, even if it’s not the mentors, even if it’s not the good folks who really want to teach, even if they’re not the ones leaving, but it’s staff that are leaving or senior managers that are leaving, that pressure is coming to them. Now, they’ve gotta work more, they don’t have the staffing anymore, or perhaps the staffing is done overseas or whatever it is. And there’s a mentality shift now. Now, you don’t have time to take a new staff under your wing and spend all that time teaching them. Because the support system isn’t there. You know, so it’s all on you. And so there’s only so much you can do with your day. And now people are focused on getting the job done, and they’re only getting more and more and more work because people are leaving in droves. And so, yeah, I mean, again, that’s why the community concept came to me because then you at least, I want to create a space for people to go to, to get that mentorship, to ask those questions and alleviate some of that training and, you know, coaching and mentorship, you know, from the folks who are overwhelmed at those levels.

Do you think that there’s a mindset in a lot of firms that, “Hey, the average tenure of this person”—that we were talking offline before we started recording, we’re talking about kind of a target that you have with Mentors Count, of that six-month new hire to, you know, five-year, six-year, first-year manager, that person that’s still growing in their career. Do you think that from a leadership standpoint, and I’m not saying it’s a correct mindset, but do you think the mindset of, “Hey, the average tenure of this person is probably going to be 18 to 24 months. So why do I want to invest in and take time because, man, statistically speaking, they’re out of here in 18 to 24 months?”

Yeah. It’s really an interesting thing. I obviously, I didn’t know the statistics behind it. I believe it now more so because people just, you know, the real difference in my opinion, and what has really changed is that staff now are not taking the BS that we—you know, I—took when I first started. You know, my first couple of years, and I was at a very good firm. When I was at EY Miami and EY in general, I had a great team and mostly everybody was good. There were a few outliers in there and those folks, they would make the experience not great. I had a majority of people who made the experience really good. So I had that support system in that regard. People that are coming out of school aren’t putting up with this stuff. So I think that’s probably why that track that you’re talking about, that, like, you know, 18, 24 months or whatever turnaround time—and I get it. I mean, I get it from the firm’s perspective. Why would you invest in someone that’s going to leave?

But here’s the thing: If you invest in them, and you spend the time and you treat them like a human, and you, you know, take care of your people, they’re not going to leave. If you spend the time and you mentor them and you show them the ropes and you give them the work that they want to do, pay them well, I know that there’s a big list of things I’m saying here, but if you do these things and you treat them well and they’re happy with it, they’re not going to leave. So, you’re creating the self-fulfilling prophecy here that they’re going to leave in 24 months and it’s going to happen.

You know, I can’t remember exactly how one of my mentors put it years ago when I was frustrated, you know. And again, the recruiting industry, we’ve got 80, 90 percent turnover, statistically speaking, in that first year, this is a hard business. And I was talking to one of my mentors early in my career about the whole concept of investing in training and developing and mentoring people that, who knows if they’re going to be here. And he said something to the effect of, “You’re right, there’s a high likelihood they could leave. What’s even worse though is if you don’t teach them and train them, and they stay.”

Ooh, that’s another good perspective.

Yeah. Because now you’ve got somebody that’s two years into your firm that doesn’t know what they’re doing.

Yeah. Like, are you just banking on them leaving?

Exactly. And so, if leadership could look at situations and say, hey, you know what, this person may leave, this person may leave, but there’s a chance that, like you said, treat them well, we pay them well, we give them an environment and a culture that they can grow and thrive and be mentored in, whether that is externally through something like Mentors Count or internally within our firm. If they stay, we’ve got a great person. If they leave, they’re going to speak well of us. And who’s to say in the world that we live in today, that two to five years from now, we don’t bring them back as a manager? Or God forbid they go to work at one of our clients. Whole lot of dynamics there. So let’s talk about Mentors Count and kind of what your vision is and you put this in place a couple of months ago now, is that right? Six weeks?

Two weeks, two weeks, actually.

Two weeks?

Yeah, two weeks ago we went live. I mean, it’s been in play, like I said, six months. I’ve been in the weeds of planning it out, thinking of the layout of everything, how I’m going to plan it out, how it’s going to look, how it’s going to function in my mind, you know, what spaces they’re called, you know, within the community, what spaces they’re going to be there, what discussion threads, stuff like that. But yeah, about two weeks it has been live for now.

And what’s been kind of the response that you’ve gotten from the world, I guess, you know, your network, what’s been the response that you’ve gotten and how have things played out?

I mean, so far it’s been, I want to say I’m critical of myself a lot, right? And I mean, we usually are, right? But I would say it’s like 80 percent, 85 percent where exactly, where my mind wanted it to be when I created it. You know, we’ve got conversations in there from everything from obviously introductions and people just being super friendly and super supportive of each other to really fairly complex tax, you know, international tax around FDAP and this other stuff like that. Because we got a couple of international people in there. We’ve got some state and local specificities, 1040, tax technical, all the way to, you know, traditionally, recently there was somebody that made a post that said, “I’m a recently promoted tax manager, and, you know, what should I look out for when I’m reviewing a tax return to make sure that I catch what are some common things?”

So it’s a blend. It’s a blend of everything, but that’s the ideal, you know, kind of conversations, the ideal way to go, because it really, to me, it’s the place where anyone, I mean, anyone can join, right? But like those six months to five years, where it’s that pivotal time where you’re trying to learn as much as possible via sponge, where they can just go and ask those questions that they don’t want to ask their manager for fear of looking a certain way.

And I think that part of it also, Yuri, is again, in the world that we live in today, the post-COVID world, we’ve got a lot of hybrid and remote employees and situations out there. So I think that some of those in-person mentoring opportunities, and let me preface all of this with, I run a remote firm. I am completely, totally on board with remote as a way to run a business. So I’m not sitting here saying that it’s a bad thing. I don’t think it is. I think you have to be intentional as a leader. But I think that one of those things that can get, you know, can fall by the wayside is the mentoring development and those in-person bump in the hall, run into the kitchen interactions of, “Hey, you got a quick minute? I’m having trouble with a return that I’m reviewing, and it’s one of the first times I’ve ever seen a return like this. Can I take five minutes of your time, dude?” Those things don’t happen like they used to.

Yeah, and it’s funny you mention this because I actually tell everybody, if anybody asks me like, and I’ve had these calls before, people ask me my advice, stuff like that, I say, you know, my advice if somebody is looking in that range is actually to at least be hybrid, in the ideal scenario. Because what you just said about bumping into someone in the hallway, you know, the proverbial knock on the door of a partner’s office or a manager’s office or whatever it is. “Hey man, dude, I’m, you know, really struggling with this return. Like, I can’t get it to balance. I can’t get it to make sense. I can’t seem to get this to populate,” or whatever it is. And I don’t, you know, the firm can be as intentional as they possibly can and as supportive, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen good firms that can do this remotely, but here’s the thing, it’s, you know, you’re still living, I call it like living by the color, you know, of the status bar on Teams or on whatever they use. You’re sitting there and you’re going, “Okay, like, ah, I really struggle, like I gotta talk to this guy, damn it, he’s on, you know, on red, or like on a call.” And you’re not gonna, like, you’re not gonna bother them, you know, you’re not gonna, like, message them. But if they were in the office, and you walk up to the door, and you, like, knock, and you’re like, “Oh, you’re on a call,” and then they’re like, “Oh, sorry, you know, I’m on a call, come back later,” you’ll catch them eventually at some point in the day. Whereas otherwise, you’re just sitting there and what, just creeping on their light status?

So from that perspective, I mean, it’s so important in those pivotal years and those important years and even Mentors Count aside, the growth is there, the growth is in being at the firms, you know? Being on location. And I know it sounds old school, but I think there’s so much value to it. I’m not saying that, like I said, I’m not saying that people do it wrong. I’m just saying that you can do it in a good way, but it’s still—that part is missing.

Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit there is some of that, what I call connective tissue that is built in person. It just is. There’s a lot of forgiveness and friendship. And those friendships are built face to face, over lunches, over a donut in the break room—those things are built when you have the ability to do those things. In the world we live in today, not every firm is leaning into that. So, you’ve got to figure out a way to create that cohesiveness. And we talked again a little bit about this offline, but when you started this, you know, six months ago in your head and then began building it and putting it together and kind of where you are two weeks into this, how much of it did you believe was going to be more tax, technical, mentoring development, needed support, versus career advice, mental support, challenges with, you know, my boss, challenges with colleagues, anything along those lines?

Yeah. In my vision, when I pictured it during those six months of building it, in my mind, I actually pictured the soft skills, I call it, you know, like the communication skills, scheduling skills, you know, how to ask for a raise, those kinds of conversations, mental health, those kind of things—I actually envisioned those being higher in the conversation flow, but as of right now, it’s, I would say it’s probably leaning more a bit towards a tax technical aspect because I think people do need that support, especially at some of these smaller, you know, smaller, mid-sized firms where there’s not a, you know, state and local level tax expertise group.

Right.

And somebody needs a resource outside and maybe they don’t want to look a certain way and ask the basic question. So there’s been some of that. But I would say, I also do realize that it’s going to take time. You know, somebody isn’t going to be so comfortable. Those are some sensitive, some of these things are sensitive topics, right? You know, and tougher to talk about. So I think it’s going to build over time in my dream world. But yeah, that’s what I would say.

Well, I think you’re right. I think they’re sensitive topics. I think that people are concerned about how do I have this conversation? How do I even bring it up? I think that there’s at times the fear of what are they going to say? Do they think that I’m making a mistake? You know, all those things that people deal with. It’s akin to, you know, so many times in talking to candidates, we’ll be talking to them about a job and just finding out who they know. And they may say something like, well, I don’t know anybody that’s looking. And I’ll have to nicely remind them, look, I respect that you don’t know anybody that’s looking, but I have a question for you: Hey, the last time you made a job change, did you send an email out to everybody in the firm that you’re looking for a job or, you know, put on a sandwich board and walk around the office that says “point recruiters towards me?” No, you didn’t, but you were looking, and in your mind you were thinking. So all of those things that people deal with mentally and emotionally, I think you’re right, I think it’s just going to take time. I would encourage you guys as you’re building this out to do some things like that proactively, even if people aren’t asking for it, because I think there’s a need there that people, you know, especially like you said, hey, how do I ask for a raise? We’re in the middle of a review season.

Yeah. This is the season.

You know, and I know people are kind of thinking in the back of their mind, how do I broach this subject? How do I have this conversation? One of the things that you mentioned before we started recording was a little bit of a surprise that there’s been a pretty decent response from people out of small to mid-sized firms where you thought it’d be people out of larger firms possibly coming your way. Kind of talk to me about that, and why you think that’s happening and the value in that statement that you see with where you can bring value to, not only the individual, but indirectly the firms they work for.

So it was a really interesting observation, you know, when you roll something out like this, I mean, honestly, it’s almost like, it’s not almost like, it is a new business. I didn’t expect it to be like that, but the more I got into the trenches of building it out and thinking about all the stuff, it was taking up so much time, that I was like, this is like, I’m doing another business here, you know? And when you do that, you learn stuff. Much like you learn stuff when you have your own firm and whatever, and you’re building that out, you also learn stuff about the people that are going to benefit most. I think that there hasn’t been a whole ton of people, honestly, I don’t even think, I think maybe like one, from a bigger firm that joined, but the reason—in my opinion, the reason why people from a bigger firm don’t join is there’s just so many resources within the bigger firms. Like when I was at EY, or even some of the smaller ones, not as big as EY, like the EisnerAmpers, or the CohnReznicks, I mean, every single expertise you could think of, you know, international tax, state and local tax, you know, what they used to call, like, fed tax, or, you know, national tax is what they would call it, that’s, like, those are some real, like, just extremely sharp people that knew answers about the most complex things off the top of their head—those resources are available within a Teams call, slash message away, or email or whatever it is.

And so, in my opinion, you know, that’s probably why folks from larger firms probably won’t necessarily see the value right away, but the small to medium-sized firms is where the crunch, like you only have, let’s say 10, 15, 20 people, they’re all busy. Management is busy. Everybody’s busy. And so, those kinds of questions, especially if it’s something that is pretty basic and you’re just scared to ask because the repercussions of that may be, you know, just being viewed a certain way—that’s why I feel like a lot of people that have joined just feel more comfortable in that, to say, “Hey, I don’t want to go to my senior manager and ask him what an itemized deduction is.” You know? Even though it’s plain basic. And sometimes I generate the conversation myself in there with a post, like, “Hey, here’s the difference between itemized and standard or whatever,” but you know, I know it’ll help somebody, or I hope it’ll help somebody in that space. So I think there’s benefit to any firm size in there, but I could see how, you know, the mentorship side and the time and the resources could be more akin to also a smaller or medium firm.

And I think it’s important to point out also, and I think you even mentioned this in one of your previous posts on LinkedIn when you were launching Mentors Count a couple of weeks ago that this is not another subreddit, you know, let’s bitch about all the problems that exist. How are you managing that? And what’s your thoughts around, you know, making sure that we don’t let that happen?

I mean, like we were talking about offline too, you know, venting, complaining, and all that stuff is important. I mean, quite frankly, it’s in our DNA, right? That’s how a lot of us just kind of get things off of our chest because keeping it on there is not good either. The only difference is when you go on Reddit, it’s just so negative. With no solution, it’s just negativity and people like, “Oh, this is terrible. I hate it. You know, this is so bad,” but the thing is, you know, that yields no solution and all it does is like, you know, it just creates a problem and then everybody just says, “Oh yeah, it is terrible,” and you move on.

Yeah. I call it raking leaves. You know, all we’re doing is we’re just raking leaves. We’re just moving [stuff] around on the top. That’s all we’re doing. No one’s digging down and getting to the roots of the problem.

Yeah, you’re not raking them into a nice pile to put into the trash, you’re just moving it from one side of the lawn to the other side of the lawn, is really what you’re doing. And so, yeah, there are really two things that Mentors Count is not. And that is, it’s not a place where, you know, to just go and aimlessly complain, you know, without wanting to actually solve it and have a solution within it. And the other thing, it’s not really a place for people that want to start their firms or, you know, stuff like that. Like it’s not a place where you know, you go to, to get advice on how to start your firm that you can go, you know, to Logan Graf’s community called Counter, you know, and I’ve sent multiple people there already, you know, I don’t need you to join, and then discover that that’s not for you. It’s really not for that because those communities exist already.

Right, yep, there are several communities that can give people kind of a launching pad to go in and do that. So, you know, again, I think that person that is in that six-month, one-year, to five-year, six-year, still trying to get their legs underneath them, it’s a great place for them to dig into. You’ve also, I think I’ve seen some posts, you’ve had a couple of other people that have stepped up to help with some other mentoring. Can you talk about who else is kind of a part of helping you put this together and be there as a resource?

Yeah, so it’s interesting. Four years I’ve been posting on LinkedIn, right, more or less daily, which is kind of wild to think. Over those four years, you know, I’ve connected with some incredible people in the profession, and we gravitated towards each other because all the folks that I’ve connected with have that mentorship side to them that they want to help people. And, you know, we’ve got folks like Henry Huie, who is very active on LinkedIn posting. He does a lot of tax technical stuff. In fact, for us, he’s made four videos that he shared with me that I could post in the group in the community, about how to prepare a 1040 from scratch. So he’s a mentor in there. Brendan Morahan, who is also pretty active on LinkedIn, talking about a bunch of different things, but is a very kind of modest and mentor open person. We got Dom Piscopo, Dominic, who’s got the Big 4 Transparency Podcast. He’s on there as well as one of the mentors.

And then there’s just folks who just joined. I honestly wasn’t, was thinking to myself initially, I was like, people are going to join and there’s not going to be any mentors except me. But interestingly enough, like the first 10, maybe 15 people that joined were of like the 10 to 15 to 20-year experience folks that, I mean, obviously are on LinkedIn, but have seen and just were like, “Yeah, I love what the concept here, I love what you’re building.” So appreciate those folks tremendously. But yeah, but there’s just a ton of good people in there and we’re growing. There are going to be more people that are going to join. They’re going to be on the mentor side of things. And people who just aren’t just going to feed you the, you know, proverbial, like what you want to hear crap that you’re going to get at the firms if you do ask there.

Yeah, I think that’s important. I know that personally speaking, when I look back in my career at the mentors that were some of the most profound people in my career, even growing up, thinking about coaches that were the most formidable in my life, they were the people that were truthful, honest, candid, and at times tough. Held you to a higher standard, made you think a little bit more. Didn’t just say, you know, “Hey, what you’re feeling is true, is right, and you have every right to feel that way.” That’s great.

But not helpful.

No. Sometimes we need people in our life. I’ve got a mentor that a few years ago I was dealing with some stuff about 10 years ago. And, you know, he was the first guy I leaned into when I started going through some of this stuff. And about two weeks later, he called me and he’s like, “Hey, how are you doing today?” And I said, “Mike, I’m doing a lot better.” And I started talking about some progress I had made over those last two weeks. He’s like, “Good, because my call today was going to be calling you and tell you, Hey, I think it’s time that you get up off your butt and stop wallowing in your self-pity and start taking some steps forward.”

Yeah. I mean, these conversations are needed, certainly, so many aspects of it. And then actually in July here, we’re going to also be starting the actual video series. So in other words, two weeks in, we’re going to begin, you know, the actual, like some of the technical stuff we’re going to have. We’re going to have some of the software skills, just videos that are going to be recorded so that if somebody joins, you know, in a month from now, they’ll still be able to access those.

That’s awesome. So if people are interested in finding out more about the community, digging into it, potentially joining, what is the best way to get information and potentially join Mentors Count?

So the best way, honestly, is just if you go on www.MentorsCount.com. That’s the name of the website, pretty straightforward. All the information is going to be there. We’re trying to make a landing page that was, you know, explanatory of everything that’s in there. You know, beyond that, obviously, my own, you know, LinkedIn profile, Yuri Kapilovich on there, you can find me. Feel free to shoot me a DM. I’ll take a look. I’ll be on the lookout for it and everything. I’m taking some time off of social media for like a month or two, but I’ll be looking out for some of those messages and stuff like that. And yeah, that’s really where you can go.

And of course, at the end of the day, I tell everybody this, that’s like in short, it’s $24.99, you know, 25 bucks a month, right? I have no commitments for anything. I’m not, I don’t even have an option in there where you can prepay for a year because I don’t need it. So, come check it out for a month, give it a try and see. The only thing I’ll say is if mentorship, like the one caveat that I would have about that is we’re still growing, and I’m still adjusting and I’m learning myself so much here about the kind of content and what’s relevant and what’s important to people from a mentorship perspective. So like, if you’re going to join, maybe join in like two months and give it a month’s try, just so I can get my bearings around, you know, everything, the content. And by then there’ll be a ton of content in there already. So there’s a bit, a little bit more of a concept of where we’re going.

I think that anybody that looks at the price and the investment and is concerned about it, needs to think about the money that we’ve all probably wasted, signing up for some kind of a membership or a software access that, you know, we’re three to six months into it before we realize, holy crap, I just spent 200 bucks on something that I really didn’t like after month one. So at a price point that you’re talking about, there’s at least some value that they’re going to get when it comes to their career, understanding technical pieces of what they do, but also more than that, making themselves a better person, which is only going to make them a better person in the marketplace. Whether they stay at the firm they’re with long-term, or they look at potentially making job changes, either way, it’s going to make them a better person in the marketplace.

A hundred percent. And I think from the firm’s perspective, that’s the other side of what, of it, a firm that’s willing to offer that to their people. And this is down the line, of course, you know, again, they have to prove a lot of value for firms to consider that, and offering it for their people, but in my mind, you know, a firm that’s going to offer their staff, you know, the ability, “Hey, when you come on board, you got a membership to Mentors Count on us, so to speak, and go in there. And if we’re not providing the mentorship and you’re feeling like you need something else, go in there. It’s for you. We’re not monitoring it. It’s not associated with the firm” and, you know, offer that. So just another avenue for firms to be different.

Which is something that I think more firms have the opportunity to do in the marketplace today. Unless you’re an EY or Deloitte or some other big, you know, top hundred firm where you could throw money and you can throw people at the problem, most firms don’t fall into that bucket.

Nope, unfortunately not.

They gotta figure out a way to leverage their relationships to get the things in place they need to get in place. So, Yuri, I can’t thank you enough for taking some time to hang out today and talk about the new community and how you and several others are really working to give industry professionals a place to gather, talk, share about some of the ideas that they’re facing with, the issues that they’re challenged with, some of those things that aren’t always easy to discuss in their firm. So I appreciate you, what you’re doing, and appreciate the time you took today.

Yeah, I appreciate you as always, always supporting my stuff. I really, really appreciate the friendship and everything, and thank you for having me on the show.

Hey, you’re more than welcome. And for those of you that took some time to hang out with us today, we’re going to have links to the Mentors Count website down below in the show notes. I’ll have a link to Yuri’s profile on LinkedIn if you want to DM him and ask some questions. But if you like what you heard, give us a like on the social media platform of your choosing, the one that you tend to stream with most. Subscribe to the podcast so that you don’t miss any of the upcoming guests that we have lined up over the next few weeks—leaders and industry insiders that are going to give us a little bit of a look on what it is to be a part of this thing called CPA Life. Until next time.

We hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcasting app, leave a five star rating and visit our website for links and show notes at CPALifePodcast.com. We’ll see you next time on CPA Life.

Mentors Count: Empowering Emerging Accountants with Yuri Kapilovich

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