The Journey From In-House To Outside Counsel - Jeff Pomeraz

Made with speech-to-text software, so a few words may be off.

0:00You're listening to the Contract Heroes Podcast, your one-stop shop for all things contract management. And now, here are your hosts, Marc and Pepe. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Contract Heroes, where we're not the heroes, our guests are. Today we've got a, a great episode for you, going a little bit of a different direction. Somebody that, um, a role that we haven't had on the show yet, so I, I think this is gonna be a great conversation. Uh, Jeff Pomerance, and he is the, uh, founder over at Pomerance Law. Um, before I, I flip things over to Pepe, he's gonna give us a little bit more information about what we're gonna be chatting about. Jeff, I wanted to, uh, thank you for coming on and give you the, the mic, and, uh, we wanna learn a little bit more about where you've been a- and, you know, what you're working on now. Sure. Well, thank you for the introduction, and, uh, I think Contract Hero is m- possibly an overstatement. Uh, but it's, uh... I'm glad to have this conversation.

0:57So as far as background, I was an in-house attorney straight out of law school for about, uh, 10 years. Uh, had some really interesting opportunities, both public and privately held companies, and, uh, including an international stint for a while. And upon returning to the States and trying a few different things, uh, ended up opening up my firm at the end of 2017. And it was, uh, it was, it was an interesting start, and I've since evolved into a firm that Excuse me. Splits my time between, or we split our time between, uh, business transactional work and litigation. Awesome. So yeah, I think there's a lot of things that we would like to talk with you, Jeff, and especially on your entrepreneurial side, right? Because you were working for 10 years as an in-house counsel, and now you d- decided to go on your own to build your own private practice, and how was it?

1:56Like, uh, how did you go from in-house to building out, an outside practice for yourself? So, I think the, uh, the in-house role provided an amazing introduction in how to practice law and development of both the technical skillsets that are necessary to be an attorney, period, and then a lot of soft skills that no one ever talks about, but are certainly expected by both when I was in-house and from internal clients, and then I see that now over the last four and a half years being on my own in terms of how to service clients, work with them, and, uh, from communication to presentation. I know we'll get into some of those questions later, but there's a lot of value in first developing those skillsets in-house. And I was fortunate enough to have some of those opportunities. Uh, I worked for IBM's largest channel straight out of law school for about four and a half, five years, uh, Mainline Information Systems.

3:00It is a privately held company in Panhandle, so had tremendous exposure to Fortune 100 companies, negotiating with attorneys far more my senior, 20 years my senior, uh, at times, and understanding how to work with both with an internal sales team, dynamic, very senior in their careers, and I'm very junior, and figuring out how to manage those relationships to moving international, working for a publicly traded company. Coming back to the States, I was a general counsel for a couple of companies. So there's, there's a lot of skillset that was developed, and I had that to lean on. So starting a business, taking on that risk, which it was, um, and something for myself, but I knew I had the, the competency and fulfillment in delivering great services to my clients. It was, how do you run a business? How do you market? How do you... What software do I use? How do you invoice? When do you invoice? What should you charge?

4:03I mean, there's a million questions that come up when you're starting any business, and it's a, it's a learning price, process, right? The, everyone goes through those cycles. When you first start, don't really know what you're doing, kind of grind away at it, and over time, it just starts clicking. And then, I don't know, two years to three years, it's like, "Okay, I know how to do this," or, "This is not confusing anymore." Um, it, it's tough to see how far you've come if you're in it every day. It's like looking in the mirror. It's like you don't really notice the, the small changes, but if you don't see a friend or, uh, someone or family member for three, four, five years, like, "Oh, wow, you've changed." So it's, it's kind of that growth that is just inherent of working in the business for, you know, a long time. And, and Jeff, I mean, was this, you know, back when, when you were in college or just starting out, I mean, was, was going out on your own something that you had always planned on doing at some point?

5:06Or, or did this kind of just evolve over the course of your career? I think it evolved. It just, it, I, I had no aspirations to own my own firm, I think ever. I think where I was really working towards was being a GC of a, a Fortune X company. But what I found is, as I moved up and had some of those senior roles, it, it didn't provide the level of fulfillment that I was anticipating it would, right? Like, the title was great, and I worked really hard and focused way more energy, now in hindsight looking at it, than I probably ever should have in what my title was, but it, it meant something. Um, now I know be- right before the call, we, you know, you asked, "What should you introduce me as?" Like, whatever. It's, it, it's secondary. Uh, or, a- and maybe it's even tertiary at this point. It doesn't really matter. It's, uh, it's about delivering world-class work product to clients. It's about being responsive. It's about- Making decisions that are beneficial, not just for my firm, but also me personally, that allows me to have the autonomy that I'm enjoying, um, and balancing just different responsibilities as a, as a husband, as a father of two young boys.

6:20You know, there's, there's a lot of competing interests, and having my own firm, it provides a lot of flexibility in, uh, adjusting to whatever is really most important in that moment. Yeah. And, and you know, Pepe and I are both business owners, so I definitely think that we, we can agree with you, uh, i- in that sense. Um, and, and I think, you know, where we're gonna start this conversation is, is kind of around the, the skills that, you know, you've, you've put together, um, that has allowed you through your career to, to work with the C-suite, but moving into this, this outside counsel kind of role where you are working with not just a single su- C-suite, but a, a bunch of, of different organizations. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I mean, why is it important when you're speaking with these folks to, to get straight to the point, not get in the weeds, don't beat around the bush and, and have a direct answer for them? Um, you know, that's something that we talked about. W- w- how, how did that develop and, you know, why do you think that's important?

7:22So if you sit in enough meetings with executives, you, you learn a lot through osmosis, just hearing not just, uh, what types of questions they ask, but also the type of feedback that they're seeking. And th- there's certainly a, a learned skill set that it requires. And I think if you look at someone at school or a more junior attorney that hasn't had that type of exposure, the opportunities that they do have, it may be a, uh, an information dump. Like, this is everything I know about this one particular subject. That's not what an executive wants to hear, at least in my experience. It's more of put them in a position to make an informed decision and be able to have those facts to support your input when you're asked. So, you know, if I think of presenting to an executive, I would always... I start out decks with issue, whatever that is, right? Sentence max two. Recommendation. Uh, one of the cool things I, uh, I learned straight out of school was advice needs to be actionable.

8:38So working in house straight out of school, it was, they did a tremendous, they do a tremendous amount of business, but it's still a relatively small company. I think, I don't know where they are at now, but maybe when I was there they had 500 employees, but did significant revenue for, you know, having that few number of employees. And leadership wants to know, you know, what their options are and to be able to move forward with it. N- no one wants to read a five-page memo. I mean, s- I don't wanna read that. I'm an attorney, you know. I want, I wanna know what the recommendation is upfront, and then if I have questions, I certainly want those to be supported. So if you have a executive asking questions, it's critical to be able to provide an answer in a condensed, uh, inductive manner. This is what, this is where I think we are.

9:34And if you're gonna get questions and directions that you probably never thought of, and it makes you think on your toes, and the next time you go present, maybe you're a little bit more prepared for it. So it's, it's a, it's an evolved process, and the only real way you really get better at it is having those reps, like anything else. But decision makers need the ability to process the information quickly and make a decision for it, and if they wanna sit on it, which often happens, you know, it needs to be something that they can, that's digestible. Um, an executive doesn't have the time to sit around and read 10 pages of analysis, um, for every question that they may have. Right. And- It's just not, it's not practical. Exactly. And I think, like, most of the, um, uh, you know, like, C management, uh, they want straight questions, and I think that's one of the main mistakes that a lot of people in, uh, law firms do, right? Because instead of saying, "You can do that," or, "You don't," it's like, "Well, it depends," right? Yeah. Sitting on that fence.

10:38And it will leave you just like, "Okay, so I'm paying you for giving me, like, a straight answer, and then you give me like, 'It depends,' so I need to make the, the decision," right? So I think, like, working on inside a company gave you, like, a lot of that experience, right? Like, how do you want external consultants to give you the answers to any of the... Well, it, of course it's, it's, uh, helpful to know, like, all the risks that are involved- Mm-hmm... so the people that needs to make the ultimate decisions know that, okay, if we go this way, maybe we can have this kind of risk. If we go the other way- Mm-hmm... we have less risk, but maybe it's gonna cost us a, a, a little bit more. So I think that's one of the main things that, uh, a lot of the people, uh, that come, that or, or, or maybe that, that people that go straight from law school to, uh, private law, right? Mm-hmm. They, they, they don't get, right? Because and, and, and what you said right now that people don't wanna read that five-page memo, right?

11:40It's like they don't care about case law, like what happened before in, in, in another case. They just wanna know, like, straight answer, and what would be your recommendation in any kind of situation. Yeah. No, I think, I think you hit on something. Glad you said it and I didn't. So I thought about, I was very fortunate to have that, uh, that maturation process, that upbringing, and I see it with colleagues that if they're asked a question, there's a lot of hedging- So, I mean, I still do it. I'm not saying I'm, I'm insensitive or I don't condition recommendations on certain factors, but- Right... I think I take a more, um, business-friendly approach of, "This is my recommendation. Like, and I'll stand behind it because of the following factors. Now, with that said, there may be other business considerations, right?" Like, I'll give you an example. You have a contract. You can... We think it's enforceable, right? Mm-hmm. Based on case law, based on research, we think this is enforceable, this provision's enforceable.

12:40However, if you enforce it, there may be some fallout for the following business reasons that I'm not sensitive to. Years ago, I remember I was sitting in the, uh, in my boss's office. It was super late, it was, like, 10 o'clock at night. I'd been waiting around for him finally to see me, 'cause he wanted to see how can we get out of this contract, right? And it was gonna go to him and then the CEO. So I go through it and I come up with this, I think, brilliant idea, right? Like, "This is how we do it." And he sits back, I remember he sits back in his chair. He's like, "Yeah, that's good." Like, it was like he was processing it. I was like, all right, yeah, like, I, I hit on it. And then the next day, I saw him. I was like, "Did you speak with the CEO?" And he's like, "Let's talk." And he's like, "Yeah, so they're not gonna do that because of X, Y, and Z business reasons." I was like, okay. Like, something I didn't have visibility into. I think technically it would've worked, and, you know, you think outside the box and try to be creative, but it's a recommendation. And I don't expect clients to always take my recommendation.

13:42Like, that's, that's not my job. My job is to put them in a position to make an informed decision and vet out, via due diligence, research, whatever, just experience, how things may play out situationally. And if I do that and they decide to go with my recommendation, great. And if they don't, that's great, too. It's, it's... The value is allowing them to make, to decide. That, that's really the, the way I view my role. Right. And let's shift now to contracting processes, right? Mm. So, uh, so one, that's one of the things that we love to talk about. That's why we call- Contracts... the show Contract Heroes. Right? So, uh, Jeff, what, what has been your experience been working with different companies when it comes to their contracting processes? Because, like, in my experience, what, what happened, I was, I was working be- before starting, uh, um, with, with our consulting firm in, uh, in, uh, big law, right? Mm-hmm.

14:40And when you work in the, in the private practice, you don't see what happens after you sign the contract, right? Oh. Like, you're a party to the negotiation process, right? Yeah, yeah. You go back and forward, but once you have the, the final version of the document, then you send it to signature and that's it. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. In your experience, when you were on, on the other side of the desk, right? Yeah. And now you are right now on your own pri- private practice. Sure. How, how, how was, like, this shift? So I don't know if it's necessarily a difference between being in-house to being or having my own firm. I think a lot of the challenges that I see with clients, big, small, or otherwise, is exactly what you're talking about, managing that contract management function. And pre-execution, I remember when I first started out, I get these, like, 30, 40, 50-page master service agreements, right? That's gonna cover any services, professional services my client does for a client, and it's really great if we can get this contract signed, because then my business team, my internal client w- doesn't need to speak to me, doesn't have to worry about a Fortune X's procurement and legal department beating us up over terms for a month or two.

15:53It's green light. We have an agreement, signed statements of work that are, you know, have the scope, have the price, and we move into engagement and they are heavily compensated on a commission basis, so they're super happy. But this is, like, the hur- the unnecessary hurdle that needs to be accomplished to be able to sell. So I'm the gatekeeper for that, and I'm going through these agreements, and I remember would, I'd send out the agreement marked up with, um, names like John-Compliance-can we agree to this provision? And maybe it's, like, uh, drug testing or that the company doesn't ordinarily do, or it's heightened insurance requirements, or it's, um, uh, safeguards that we have from a security standpoint on the technology that we employ. You know, it could be a whole variety of things.

16:44But maybe when I'm done with it, there's 30 or 40 things or that we never include these terms if we subcontract the work, and we need to flow down these 10 provisions. There's a lot of work that goes into making sure that we comply with that client's contract. So to summarize it, everyone would give me the green light. We'd go through negotiations. Those would now be sticking points. It's signed, and it's like, you know, pat myself on the back, I did a great job. What I've learned, and I, you know, through having various experiences throughout my career, is that doesn't really get you there. That's, like, base level. It's abstraction of contract. That's notification of terms. Really the value is when those obligations are identified is the businesses identifying controls, preventative and detective controls that they implement to ensure compliance with said requirements. And then beyond that, that there's actual periodic testing of those controls for effectiveness, and then subsequent to the testing, there's reporting back to management on whether or not those controls are in fact effective.

17:50And if there's any type of testing that fails, that there's a remediation process that's implemented to fix whatever the gap is, and then it's tested again. That second piece, that second component, is a m- m- monumental undertaking for an organization, because- You're talking about head count, right? You need someone that can not just summarize the contracts. And there's AI out there that I've heard varying results from, but let's just say we get the contract abstracted in some manner. Who's, uh, who's developing these controls? It's probably someone in operations, uh, or various departments that are doing it. There's someone that needs to run the tests, collect the data. There's someone that needs to put the reporting together. Maybe it's the same person doing the testing. People need to meet on a periodic basis to review the results of those, and then s- I guess the ops person would go back and fix whatever the failure is.

18:46So, you're talking about people, you're talking about, uh, time that's invested. Uh, it's not a, it's not a cheap or instant, uh, way to achieve compliance, but from my standpoint, it can be a huge competitive advantage for organizations that are heavily contract-centric because most companies don't do this. They do exactly what you described. Contract signed, we have the green light, we can do business. Let's go sell contracts in some online repository, hopefully. Maybe it's in someone's email , maybe it's somewhere on a desktop, or it's printed out and put in a drawer and, you know. If it's not, there- there's so much that can come with just m- managing your contracts. Even just centralizing them is a great first step. But to your question, it's, I haven't seen any organization do a great job of it. I've seen them do it at various levels of success.

19:44But I think once some people leave an organization, a lot of that knowledge can go with it, unless it's, there's a, a deep appreciation and investment into compliance. And, and Jeff, I, I think it, you know, it's interesting because you really just kind of laid out what a roadmap should be for, for an organization, regardless of if they're using a, a contract management tool or not. You know, even if you have manual processes, y- you nee- still need to have those checks and balances in place to make sure that if there are issues, that they're being addressed, they're being discussed, and they're being fixed. Um- Yep... you know, and, and as we always say, it, it, you know, having a, a CLM tool can help with those things, but if you don't have the proper people or processes in place, you know, it's only going to go so far. Um, a- and I, you know, something that we, we didn't touch on previous to this i- is the, the compliance piece, but- ... you know, in, in the post-execution phase.

20:41So, so after these, these contracts are signed, you know, how, how do people go about making sure that, um, they're, they're staying on top of renewal dates, uh- Mm... a- a- and other, you know, things like that that are, um, other pieces of information that are in these contracts? Yeah. So I would actually take a step back, y- like one step or two steps before the contract's even signed, is figuring out who stakeholders are. So if I'm, if I'm mapping this, right, for an organization, I'm thinking, one, who gets to sign contracts? Two, does legal touch them at any point, or is legal only touching some contracts? Um, and where do they go? Right. I think those are three really important questions to answer. Uh, I remember at one, I was working with one client and I get sent over a contract that was ca- I'm just trying to think back. It was canceled.

21:39There was a monthly recurring charge of X, and the contract provided that the company was responsible for 75% of the MRC, monthly recurring charge, until the end of the term. Don't even have a copy of the contract. It was sitting in some person's desk maybe that had left the company two years ago and no one was using the service, so it was canceled, and then you get this big bill. So, you know, I think, one, companies love the, um, service providers, SaaS offerings love the automatic renewal, right? Because a lot of people forget to give notice, it gets automatically renewed. I know, I'm sure everyone's experienced that on a personal level, right? You have some subscription, you forget about it, and then you get a charge like, "Wait, what w- what is this?" For another year. Like a company set up in that... I'm sorry? A- and you get charged for another year.

22:28Yeah, another year, exactly, and you can't do anything because you had to give notice at least 90 days prior to the, uh, the end of the then current term to avoid automatic renewal or something of that nature. So, um, it's a very common problem, and I think the way I would combat it is not focus on just renewals, but centralizing the function of contracts, whether it's a person, whether it's a team, but it, it needs to filter into one location. Uh, you know, legal's a good gatekeeper for an organization, just generally speaking, but have it go through a function and have sponsors for contracts. So if John, you know, this business unit wants to have a contract, there should be someone who's signing off on it from the business saying, "I approve of this agreement." You know, maybe procurement touches it if it's over a certain monetary threshold, if they're buying something, and then it goes through legal.

23:26Business is responsible for, or should be responsible for vetting out the relationship or at least understanding the, the financials and the metrics and deliverables from that service provider. Procurement can do its own due diligence, make sure they check enough boxes. They're registered to do business. They have insurance. They're in good standing. They don't maybe have any open litigation or whatever. And then for legal, it's reviewing the contract and making sure it goes to the right signatory. And I think if you do anything but what I just described, it's a guessing game because you're not gonna capture all agreements. So I think of it as almost checkpoints. Um, excuse me. At various points, I've had to submit, um- I was responsible for business units, and before certain work products went to my boss's boss for approval, my boss would require obviously me to sign off on it.

24:26And if I signed off on it, my boss received it, and it wasn't at the level it needed to be for his boss, it would get ripped apart, and we'd kind of go through that cycle again. So I got very good at filtering what went forward. And I think if you create those checkpoints and know that executive signatory is not going to sign it unless legal has blessed it, it almost creates a... You know, it, that funnel comes through legal. Has legal approved this? And maybe do a simple cover sheet, like, "Legal has signed off on it. Here's the n- summary of the non-standard terms." I mean, it's, this can get very bureaucratic heavy, which I'm not a fan of, but I think there is an elegant way, one-page summary of... If I'm a signatory, and I'm busy with my own stuff, every day at 4:00, I sign contracts. Every contract should have a simple cover page. Who are the parties? What are we doing? Are we buying, are we selling? Uh, is it some other type of relationship? Uh, what's the value of it? Key terms, and then here's a summary of terms that fall outside of normal risk thresholds. The business unit has signed off on it.

25:36If it's a procurement deal, procurement has signed off on it. Legal has signed off on it. I'm signing it. If I'm an executive, that's what I wanna see. Anything else is, frankly, gonna be a waste of time. Because I'm gonna look at the contract, I have no, uh, concept of background. I'm not gonna know if, like, are these terms good, bad, or otherwise. I'm g- I'm doing it blind. So I think for companies, an easy win would be to centralize the function, and then from there, to your question, it's easy, right? If you know it's going through legal, then all you need to do is say, "All right, this is an evergreen contract," or, "This automatically renews unless we give X notice." And then you, over time you can build in those ticklers and reminders and alerts for notice or avoid automatic renewal. Um, insurance, right? That's always a big one with certain clients. So, so does that address your, answer your question in a long-winded way? No, sure it does.

26:37And actually, like, if you can do that, you will be halfway on building your own CLM platform there. Because, I mean- Yeah... when, when, when you have all those KPIs in place, you have more information. And right now, I think the general counselors are held accountable to their own team, right? They're the one, they are requested to provide information to the CFO or the financial teams to know- Mm-hmm... like, what are their numbers, right? How can they be more efficient? And i- if, if they can, uh, find a way on how to have this data, these KPIs, that would be, like, way more effective, right? And, and, and now, when you have all the processes in place and you want to save more time and to automate, uh, some of your administrative work, then it will make things way easier when you want to implement technology there, right? Because you have to- Sure...

27:27have all this process in place, and what are you expecting, and what are, like, the numbers in order to know when the, when the legal team and, and, uh, um, you know, on the communication with other departments such as procurement, sales, or whatever, uh, it's going to be more efficient, right? So, uh, so, so Geoff, this, all these re- re- recommendations have, have been great, and I got one last question. And, uh, if someone's considering going out to, on their own, right? Mm. Starting their own firm, what would you... What would be the number one tip that you will suggest to them? Well, so it's funny, I've had this conversation a, a handful of times, uh, in response to a post I made on LinkedIn last week. Um, one tip. Be in a place where you've hit a saturation point. So if that's based on title, if that's based on compensation, if that's just based on the grueling nature of having a, a high-profile role, whatever that may be. I think, I think it's kind of twofold.

28:44One, be at that saturation point, and two, have a good-- It doesn't have to be, like, 20 years experience, but you need a, a base level of technical skills. Because when you start any business, there's two components. There's the fulfillment, and then there's the running a business. And for most attorneys that have not been out on their own, and if you're coming from in-house, you probably have not had your own law firm. If you did, it was probably for a short stint. Running any business takes a lot. Um, there's a lot of soft skills like grit, um, belief in yourself that even though you may not be, you may not be firing on all cylinders and there's a million different things you can do, that you believe in your decisions, and you're just gonna keep moving forward. Uh, notwithstanding all the other, uh, external noise that you're hearing. So, and people are at different points in life, right?

29:44If you have a family, if you have children, if you need the steady paycheck, like, I get that, and I think, you know, most people are in that situation. Like, they need the income coming in. I would just say if you're looking at the security of a job, to me and having worked on my own for a while, it's, um, it's a bit of a, like a fool's gold. You know? Yes, you have the security. Yes, you have health insurance or 401(k), and they maybe match, do... You know, it's, there's, there's a structure there. But if you take a step back from that and say you make, make numbers easy, let's say you make $150,000 a year, and if you were to go out on your own and you're billing at, say, $300 an hour, that's 500 hours that you have to bill for the year. There's 12 months, that's, I don't know, say 40 hours a month, which breaks down to 10 hours a week, two hours a day.

30:41Can you create two hours a day to be in the same exact position you were in for that buck 50? I don't know. I mean, it's, it's not a huge... I mean, initially it may seem, like, insurmountable, but two hours a day isn't crazy, and that two hours becomes two and a half or three, or maybe some stuff on a flat fee or a contingency. And there's so much more upside, unless you're in a unique position where you're, like, a Fortune X, uh, GC and you're make- you have stock options and, you know, your salary's in the eight figures. Like, that, that's unique and there's only so many in that position. But for attorneys at, you know, AGC or deputy general counsel and they've kind of, they're looking for that next step and waiting for a GC role to open up, like, I think it's worth having that experience. At the same time, it's really cool trying something for yourself.

31:38More satisfying for, most satisfying thing I've ever done professionally is opening up my own firm. And I didn't get into this, but when I opened my firm, I started working, and super proud of it, out of a public library. Uh, we'd moved to South Florida. I had no income coming in. We'd just bought a house, uh, had, was riddled with issues like mold, termites, and I'm like, have a war on that front trying to get the house repaired. I have a young son, a little more than a year old, and I just started my firm, no network, uh, down here, no clients, and I'm still trying to figure everything out, and I got one client and then another. I'm taking jobs on the chin just because you gotta eat. And after months, I finally got my first office, which was excuse me, um, probably under 100 square feet. Paid a few hundred bucks a month for it, and it was, like, I had a door, and that was cool. I could leave stuff there at night. And then I moved into my current office, and this past September, I bought a building on a main thoroughfare in just under four years of opening my practice. So, you know, I saw that gradual... It was, it was gradual, but I saw the growth.

32:51I saw my decisions were good. And I don't know. It's tough to say what's the one thing, but I think just you need to have, like, that come-to-Jesus moment with yourself and say, "I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna commit to it. I'm gonna grind. I'm gonna have the grit. I'm not gonna listen to the noise. I'm not gonna look at what other people are doing, 'cause that's not me. Like, focus on me, 'cause that's what you can control." And give it a shot. I mean, worst-case scenario, it doesn't work, and then you go apply for another job. Like, jobs are not easy to get, but I would think most people are relatively employable, and if they're willing to take a job, there's something out there for them. But if you're always kind of, like, wanting more or feel like you're always underpaid or feel like the title doesn't represent where you should be, I mean, it's, the barrier to entry is pretty low to start your own firm. It's get a software. Shout out to Clio. Love Clio. I know that they don't sponsor me, but Clio's been fantastic. That was the first, uh, investment I made. And then, I don't know.

33:55You just try a bunch of different things. You network, you market, you, you just try. Just keep trying, and some things will click and some won't, and you just keep at it. So not one thing, but, you know, that kind of gives you some of the things that I think it requires. Yeah, no, no, I, I think those are, I think those are great, Jeff. And, you know, I, uh, if you've got that itch and you wanna chat with Jeff about it, Jeff, where's, where's the best place to, to connect with you to, you know, have that type of conversation or, or any conversation to learn more about, you know, what you have to offer to, to businesses as well? Sure. So, uh, follow me on LinkedIn. I started posting last August. I could do an hour about just what that looks like and how to create engaging content, but LinkedIn's a great spot. If you DM me and wanna have a conversation, I'll send you a link. Um, always make myself available to, to talk with people.

34:47I feel like when I thought about doing this, I didn't really know who to reach out to, and, um, if there was someone out there back then that would've answered some questions for me, I would've taken 'em up on it. So feel free to, to contact me. I'm, I'm happy to talk. Awesome. Well, Jeff, we really appreciate you coming on and giving us a little bit more on your story and, and chatting with us. So we appreciate that. Thanks for, thanks for joining us, and hopefully, everybody, we'll see you back here real soon. Thanks for listening to another episode of Contract Heroes.