Let's Talk with Leaha & Rhonda

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You're listening to locally produced programming created in KUNV Studios on public radio. KUNV 91.5.

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The following is a paid program sponsored by Crawford Management Group and Smart Time Consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you may hear do not necessarily represent the views of KUNV Las Vegas, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Hi, this is Leah Crawford. And I'm Rhonda Nolan.

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Welcome to the Let's Talk with Leah and Rhonda show. We're here for you and we're ready to go.

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Let's do it.

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Hey, good morning, good morning, good morning, Las Vegas. It is Saturday morning, 8.30 in the morning. We are here and ready to talk. You know what? My girl, Rhonda, love you, love you, love you. I know she's an entrepreneur. She is super duper busy. Miss you. Love you. I can't wait to talk to you next week to hear about your great adventures. But instead, I got Wes right here with me today. You want to know what it is going it is going the weather temper tantrum weather that's all I can say temper tantrum weather for real we're still having it I but I am so looking forward to those you know the sun is out a little bit more it's getting there I feel it I feel it's

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coming it's coming right next week is the time change right the 12th I believe is the jump is

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the jump you want to know what I hope it is yeah but my birthday is next week oh my god super duper excited plans what you got you want to plan so my daughter's coming in town all right and funny thing is when you have older children and they tell you what you're going to do for your birthday oh okay so she's making a plan you mapped it out they mapped it out and then gave me the price tell me how much right you told me how much it was right and I just and I had to look I was like, but you're you're an attorney. Mm-hmm. You know, you're an attorney. Yeah You should be paying for mom. Yeah, you know, that's your birthday. Why are you paying? Reciprocations, well, that's not in my budget. Okay I remember when you Okay, sure. I am super duper excited. She will be here. Haven't seen her in a couple of months. Yeah, and it's a parent, right? You feel proud, because when you're raising children, especially as an entrepreneur, you know, and I became an entrepreneur because of her.

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Oh, okay.

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Because I couldn't work the long hours in the office. I needed some flexibility because I was a single parent.

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Okay, so you were raising a child as you were becoming an entrepreneur.

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I was raising a child as I was becoming an entrepreneur and challenging.

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Was that single parenting as well?

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Single parenting, oh, and we were in a different city.

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Yeah.

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Because I was in Las Vegas.

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OK.

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OK.

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I had done it in DC, but easier, back east, family, and front.

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Support network is closer.

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Yeah. But here, when we first moved here, I was with my grandmother. Actually, as a matter of fact, we lived in this neighborhood. And two years later, grandma passes away. And now I have to raise this child. And I'm like, okay, gotta figure this out because I still have to eat, became an entrepreneur. Ended up getting my office up the street from her high school because drive her to school, go to work, she gets off of school, close the office, go home. But I, cause I wanted, I was that active parent. I think I was, I drove her to more stuff. I mean, so funny, I remember when she was in elementary school and the question was, what is your transportation to school? And she said, car. And I'm like, school bus, baby. People get on the school bus. They don't necessarily drive. But blessed in that I was able to do that and able to be an entrepreneur. But the biggest thing was, it was tax. I've always done taxes. This is probably, and I had to count, this is my 31st tax season. My 31st tax season.

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So that's 31 years in the business.

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31 years in the business. 15 years in Vegas. So I was doing it somewhere else first. So you're about half and half now. I'm about, oh my god, so what I can say is, even though it gets better, some things are consistent and sometimes I wonder why I haven't moved on to do other things and I realize I love tax. I love everything tax.

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Less complacency, more comfort. You're where you want to be.

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I'm where I want to be, but more importantly, the tax law changes every year. So it's always something new, right? Yeah, always.

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On your toes all the time.

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Not only that, entrepreneurs, what I find is this is one of the areas that, you know, they have a vision, I want to bake cookies. I want to be a consultant. I want to do these things. I don't any business. It really is right, right? It's any business right and I can go I can talk to him because the financial statements are the financial statement, right? Right, right the tax the consistency part of the tax return

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Yeah

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And I can help you to grow your business by using the things that I learned or I'm still learning right, right Love what I do and as I do it, it's funny because the more I do it the more I fall in love with it. Over and over again. It's like we have this simple romance, like when I'm sitting there, no, when I'm talking to entrepreneurs, their face lights up.

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Oh, right.

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When they're talking about their dream, their passion, and what they want to do, and why they're doing it, and their why is strong. And then they're like, but I don't have a clue about the numbers. I just know I make the money, I put it in the bank. Right. And I spend some money. I want to pay myself. I want to do these things. Okay, well then let's plan. Let's have a fun conversation

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incorporating what you're doing. Right. And you can dive in deeper and you can give them

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all that information. And you can focus on and then let me have a conversation about what you did. Let me put it in a format so you can understand it. Right. Yeah. And then we can report it at the end of the year. We can have a hard conversation because it's hard conversation when you tell them that they owe money. Now that's the first time. Right, right. But what I find is, and I tell people, when you come in our office we're in a long-term relationship. We're committed. Yeah. You know, you come in, get your taxes done, we're committed. I mean

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taxes are year on year as it is. A year is a long term. And it's a checkup, right?

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So when you come in the office, it's like a checkup. Let's talk about you. Let's talk about what you've been doing, you know, do you have any plans? Do you plan like right now we have clients that range from I think our youngest client is 18. You were mentioning this before on a previous show. Yeah, 18 years old. Like 18 years old but our oldest client is about 80. Okay. So different, everybody's in a different phase in their life. Of course. And it's just a checkup so we have a good conversation, you know. How long do your appointments usually last like that? Oh my God, so it depends. So some clients, we, and I know when, I know the people, just by talking to them briefly.

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You build a rapport over time, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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The quickest I've gotten somebody out of the office is 20 minutes.

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Okay, when that was with intention? No, it was just they had nothing to say. It's just the way it went.

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It's the way, they had nothing to say. Oh. The long, we run about two hours.

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Okay.

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Easy two hours. Average about an hour, hour, hour, 15 minutes. And a lot of times, because they have a lot, we're talking about their tax return, and then we're talking about some other things, like maybe they want to open a business. Or, I've had some, they want to buy a house. And they want to figure out, they don't know what the process is to buy a house. So they're factoring a bunch of stuff into... Or, they want to start a business. Right. And, or I've had some, I've had couples come in and then I've done them after they divorced.

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Oh, geez.

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Oh, oh, oh.

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That's even like, this just sounds messy.

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You want to know what though, but when you're dealing with adults, it's not.

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Okay.

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Because it was respectful.

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Okay, that's the important part, right?

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The important part is, look here, we, we got good together. Yeah. And that's what they both said, you know. I've had some that were dating and ended up she wouldn't marry him until he got his taxes done.

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That's the most responsible thing I've ever heard in terms of relationships.

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But no, it was like on her checklist and she was like, you know, your taxes need to be done. We need to figure out your liability. We need to work together to pay it off and then we can get married because then we can afford a wedding.

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I mean, if you're going into it like it, like obviously a team effort, like a team dynamic, which I feel is probably the right call to make, then

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that's a perfect way to take care of business. The funny thing is that I've had clients from all, I mean, just all different type of scenarios.

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All walks of life.

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All walks of life. And what I love about our office is everybody's a VIP client.

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You mentioned this before, yeah. What does that mean to you?

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What does that mean to me?

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Yeah.

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I'm not going to rush you just because you feel like you just got one W-2. Oh, okay.

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Because you might have some-

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You think they think they're simple, but like-

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But it's not.

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Yeah. It's not, because there's still a lot of questions I need to ask. You know, do you trade in Bitcoin, which is a huge question now. Oh, yeah. Crypto, yeah. Are you trading in Bitcoin? Are you doing, well, they say virtual currency. Virtual currency, okay. Are you using, are you getting paid for services in virtual currency? Are you trading in virtual currency? And what I like is even the person that's just starting out working, that might not be your goal. That might not be where you want to be. Right. So how do we push you there? I've had some children come in that wanted to go to college. You know, my office, as a matter of fact, public service announcement, college senior. I mean, I'm sorry, high school seniors. If you are a high school senior in Clark County, Hannah Brown Community Development Corporation, the scholarship is out. The scholarship is out.

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What is that?

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So, Hannah Brown is a legend here in Las Vegas. And over the years, easily, she's probably given over half a million dollars in scholarship. Easy. Oh, wow. Over the years. And it's been about 20 years. So, it may be way more than that. I know I've counted at least half a million. Okay. Okay. And she was doing it 20 years before I started working with her.

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Is that related to the Millennium Scholarship or the same kind of idea?

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No, same kind of idea, but what she does is high school seniors and you can renew it every year. Oh, wow. If you maintain a certain grade point average. Yeah. So, you apply, you go to Hannah Brown Community Development Corporation. If you Google it, her website will come up. The application is simple. You have to mail it in. I'll bring the dates next week because I didn't bring the dates with me because I know all the dates are in my office. I know it's coming up, though. It's in April. But you, high school seniors, or if you were a Clark County resident, Clark County School District student in your freshman, junior, or freshman, sophomore, junior year, you can still apply, because you can apply four times. Oh, wow. For the scholarship. And then she gets a bunch of accolades from a whole bunch of different politicians and stuff to congratulate you on getting the scholarship. And then she also brings back past scholarship recipients.

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Right, the alumni so to speak.

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The alumni to talk about. So my daughter was, that's how I got to meet her, my daughter was a recipient. Oh, okay. And you know, you're a college student.

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I was, yeah.

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You were a college student.

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I graduated, yeah.

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$1,000 is a lot of money when you're in college.

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Yeah.

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You know.

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It's a lot of money now.

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A lot of money.

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It really is. Well, think of, and she's been doing $1,000 for years. Yeah. And it goes to the school, goes for your tuition. So if you're getting financial aid and all this other stuff, I just love the fact that her scholarship is for Clark County students. Right. It's another resource for you. Just keep it close. And she raises the money locally. Oh wow. Grassroots, huh? Oh, it's been grassroots. She's been doing this and her and a woman, Jerry Merritt, Jerry, Hannah and Jerry, when they get together, fabulous things happen. Okay. And they've been doing this for a very long time. I know next week we're bringing a guy, Jaron Gray. He's the president of the Urban Chamber. He's going to come on next week and talk about some of this stuff.

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I want to hear the person talk about it.

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Yeah, of course. He's going to elaborate on it more. But in my business, because of what we do, we don't just specialize in one industry. OK. I have clients that own restaurants. I have beauty salons, barbershops. We have contractors, GCs, general contractors. Okay. Is that construction? Construction. Okay. Yeah. We do some stuff with construction. We, because we help you get business licenses. We have janitorial companies. So a lot of small business owners, right? But then a lot of people that have everyday jobs, you know, working for large companies, smaller companies. What I love is everybody sometimes you just need a safe place right and our office is that safe place so that's what that VIP means to me that's actually this is that safe place what do you want to do because it's so funny or was every time somebody tells me something a resource then and about and it's always like 48 to 72 hours a resource pops up and I'm like hmm well y'all two could see if y'all could work together and see if something can happen.

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So you also help kind of facilitate the networking

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and all that stuff.

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We do all of that. We do all of that because good people around good people. Yeah. Right? And if something happens, that's great. If it doesn't, that's fine too. Right. And that was like even the premise for this show.

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You're in good company. Nothing really bad is gonna happen.

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Oh no, you're in amazing company because the people, when people want you to succeed when there's no when there's no other ulterior motive you're right for you to succeed no unhealthy competition nothing well not only that I'm not measuring what you're doing okay I'm okay when you say matter of fact I want you to succeed I'm cheering you on I'm clearing your path you know I'm making sure that whatever you need you have rising tides raise all ships, you know, you know rising tides raise all ships And that's my future, but that's the type of company. I wanted because I didn't like I Did not I wanted to be in and around people that were positive that were uplifting That had now don't get me wrong. We call a spade a spade, but we do it in love. We don't do it in a way, because some people can say some things to you that can break you down and you're torn forever.

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Your honesty isn't malicious.

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Can't be, never has been. Never has been. Or let me say this, I didn't never, that's never my intention. That's not my intention.

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Best way to put it.

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My intention, because how you take it is how you take it. But my intention has always been to uplift. And because I've had clients that have come in, I've seen them start off at the $10 an hour job, then get to the $70,000 a year job, then break into six figures, buy houses, do different, I've seen it. You've seen the movement. I've seen the movement, but I also have felt them and some of the pain that they went through and being able to encourage them, you know, well don't look at it this way, look at it that way. I remember some years ago, girlfriend called me and we were talking and she was going through some things and all I said to her I was like man stand on your head and run that problem by us again. And what do you mean by that? Stand on your head. If you stand on your head you see the room upside down. Right. I said now think about it and she was like that she said first of all you're crazy. Yeah. Because I'm not standing on my head but I get where you're coming from because I probably need to look at it from a different lens. Yeah, I was seeing it from my lens. Right. And she wasn't a woe is me person. Okay. She's always been okay. So this is the problem. All right, let me make sure I got I'm assessing what the problem is. Let me get in the solution. She's trying to stay in a positive

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mindset about it, even though it's clearly like an issue.

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It's a lot of things. It's being able to use your words. And use your words in a way where you're communicating and you're listening and people can hear you. So it's a little bit different. A lot different. But in our office, that's what I mean by that VIP client. That's wonderful. I spend the time, I work on me, so that when I do interact with you, I'm hoping that we leave you wanting more. Right. You know, for that next visit.

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And that's truly healthy communication. Yeah.

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You know. Yeah, it is. It is. It is.

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Good character is what we call it.

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Just good character. Yeah. Just being able to have, because sometimes it's hard conversations. Yeah. When you're sitting across someone and you tell them, well, you know, you owe X amount of dollars.

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Yeah. I guess in like unfortunate news kind of thing.

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Yeah. You owe, well, how do I? Hey, okay, so let's talk about it. Yeah. Let's go through everything. This is, these are the documents you gave me and, and this is what you did.

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It's a teachable moment.

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It's a teachable moment. And what I found is over the years, they're like, okay, so what can I do better? What can I do differently? Are there different strategies for me? And we would take the time in my office to research it. Okay, so we found this. You can do this. Okay. Instead of doing that, you can do this. And I mean, I've had, when I tell you a whole bunch of different scenarios around, you know, over the years, but it's been a long time.

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Yeah, of course. Well, you just said, I mean, 31 years is, it's a long time no matter how you slice it.

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No matter how you slice it, no matter how you slice it, and every year is the same, you know, it's the same thing. Every year is the same thing. Every once in a while, a couple of years, I was like, I'm not gonna do this next year. I'm not gonna do this next year. Next year comes, I'm like, oh, I guess I'm gonna do it.

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You're gonna cash out kind of thing.

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Yeah, that's what I was gonna be done. But then my insurance guy, he's like, you know you never have to retire from what you do.

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I was like, huh?

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He said, you know you really never have to retire.

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I said, why you say that?

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He said, because it's seasonal and you get to a point where you only take a certain number of clients.

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That's true, that's true. You're able to kind of control your own client base. It's like a hair stylist.

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Control your client base. You can have some good conversations, charge your fee, and that's lunch money.

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You've got to make it enjoyable for yourself and then it's less like work.

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And that's what he said. He said you control the pace and you can not accept people as clients. I love it. Um, we've turned some away we have

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Um, but we are but I'm just I'm just makes me curious what in general obviously like you're saying everything is always different like every situation is unique unto itself, but um, what are perhaps um without getting into like embarrassing specifics or anything what kind of is something that would lend you to Reject a potential client or say no rather than bring someone on what what kind of like the dividing line between you know? I'll take this person on Integrity in that person themselves and business plan Okay, um somebody wanting

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I'm not the I'm not the prepare that you come in and you tell me what you want me to do. I'm not her. I see

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what you mean. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Like this is what I'm trying to get away with. I'm trying

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to get away with what I need you. I'm not that I'm not her. I am. Let's give me your documents. I'm gonna use my info. You're paying me for my information and knowledge. I'm gonna use my information and knowledge. Hopefully, you know, we can see I'm not in and but we've had to we have we've had to turn away.

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Yeah, of course.

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Some clients. Okay. Wanting to do different things. No, we're not going to do that.

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Yeah, that's true.

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But if you want that done, then here, you can go somewhere else and they can do it.

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Yeah, you're like, that's not the business I'm going to get into.

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That's not the business I want to get into. Yeah. And having that conversation and knowing, but for the most part, you know, most people just want their stuff done and they want it to be accurate.

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Right.

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Number one, of course.

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They want it to be accurate. And what I love is if we prepare your return, you know, we'll defend the numbers that we put on your return. Oh, okay. So we'll, you know, if you ever get an IRS letter, you know, you don't have to pay extra for some audit service or whatever. We don't have to do that. No. You bring the letter to us.

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Refer right back to you.

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Yeah. And we will handle it for you. Awesome. We will handle it for you, but you can contact us at 702-382-5737. I truly enjoy what I do.

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And what's the name of your...

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Oh, it's Crawford Management Group. Well, actually it's KISS Consulting.

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KISS Consulting.

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It was KISS Consulting. So when I started the business, I named it KISS Consulting. And our friends, they're like, you know we're in Vegas, right?

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You know what I'm saying?

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Yeah, that sounds a little different.

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A little bit different, right? A little different. So I said, but it is keep it seriously simple because I think sometimes we overcomplicate stuff. That's a really clever acronym. Yeah, it was keep it, it was, well, the real acronym is keep it simple stupid. I was just going to say that. But mine was keep it seriously simple. And I was, you know, keep it seriously, keep it simple. When we make things too complicated, it doesn't have to be that complicated.

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Especially something like taxes, which is so like inherently complicated.

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It's inherently complicated, right. And we had this conversation, I'm like, look here, so you gotta put this on that line, from that on that line, then you take this over here, move it over here, it goes on that form, so then it does this, and they think that they, okay, got it. Y'all understand? No, okay, let's start all over again. You gotta put this on that form, and.

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Yeah, you're explaining the magic trick to them.

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Well, what I've learned is, I'm not gonna explain the whole magic trick. I'm gonna start at the bottom and work my way up. OK, if you get a refund, we're going to start with a refund and work our way up.

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Right.

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You know, if you're a business owner, we spend a little bit more time with you because there are a whole lot of forms you have to fill out. If you get certain credits, we ask a lot more questions because there are more forms that we have to fill out. And we take the time because I need you to understand what you're doing. So when someone says you, well, I got dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot, did you? Well, how did you get that? Yeah. You know, what did you do? Because I mean, we've had people come in and they're like, well, somebody did my return and I'll look at it and I was like, oh, OK. But I've seen a lot that were good returns. Right.

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But I've seen some I'm like, oh, got it. So what does it take when you get something and it raises red flags? What is what?

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How do you go about it? So I have my obligations to my client, of course, and I just inform them Okay, so you this return says this and I go this return says this well, that's not this word This is what this return says. Mm-hmm And we go through we have a conversation about it. And then I do my return. My return is this. But this return says this.

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And you show them the comparison?

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I show them the comparison. I show them the differences. And, you know, we file, I want to say, not 100% because there are some times where we have to mail it in. Okay. But for the most part, about 98% of our stuff, we file electronically. You file, yeah. We e-file. We e-file. And I've been e-filing, you're going to laugh, I've been e-filing since the 90s.

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Okay, so that's got, that's taken electronic terms. I mean that was on like dial-up Machines and you have the dot matrix paper

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Right now we you want to know what that's when you had you that's when you had to hit them dude dude dude dude Yeah, all of that, but no we've I've been e5. Yeah, I've had an even number that long I had I've had an even number that long and we have been Following electronically and it was so funny because I remember when I got my first it used to take like 48 hours for them to give you an acceptance okay now it's like 20 minutes really you you'll know but it's follow-up too right because with e-filing even though it's a lot simpler you have to follow up to make sure that the return was accepted or rejected right and then we also send our clients acceptance letter so you have the documents that the return was accepted okay cool and we've also been encouraging people. So if you're listening and you haven't done this, set your IRS account up.

0:24:09
You were bringing this up last episode too.

0:24:11
Please set up your IRS and I'm on it because you wanna see what has been filed, right? Documented for you. Cause I actually looked in my account and I was like, oh, I got, oh, I'm getting all these income. Okay, got it. Okay, I missed. Oh, and it's because but luckily, I knew when back I was like, Okay, got it. And that's one of the prizes. No surprises. But I was like, Oh, they were okay. And that but especially with the 1099 k. So you know, a lot of people do the cash app and different things like that, right? They're reporting now.

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Oh, yeah, it's right up to after a certain amount corrects.

0:24:50
No, no, no, it used to be.

0:24:53
OK, that's what I'm thinking of.

0:24:55
No, it used to be a certain number of transactions, certain dollar amount. No, they are reporting. And you need to be mindful of that because that 1099-K, you have to go. It's not mailed to you. Like a lot of tax documents are mailed to you. So like say you had the E-Trade accounts, the investment accounts, different virtual currency apps. You have to go into your settings to pull down the tax documents. Right, yeah.

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Because they're not mailed,

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and they're not even emailed to you, okay? But what I can say is, I love what I do. Rhonda, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. I know next week we're gonna have a good conversation and you're gonna tell me about all the fabulous things you're out here doing. And I can say, being an entrepreneur it is the most it's hard but it's probably the most rewarding thing that I could have ever done.

0:25:45
Nice well it sounds like I mean it sounds like you're like we're talking about the start of this you're you found like you found your place you found your slice.

0:25:52
I found my slice and even though sometimes I wasn't sure this is my slice. That's awesome. But Wes I want to thank you thank you for coming on here. Of course, no I'm having to jump in. And I did not know your last name was Knight.

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Knight, yeah.

0:26:05
Oh, you didn't know?

0:26:06
I did not.

0:26:07
I'm looking down like, Wesley Knight.

0:26:08
How about that?

0:26:09
I don't know that name. Okay.

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Okay.

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All right.

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All right.

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I love it. It jumps out. It jumps out. It does.

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There's some famous Knights.

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That's why.

0:26:20
Yeah, there are.

0:26:21
There's some famous Knights, but I can tell you-

0:26:22
I'm related to none of them. Not related to any of them? No, no, no. You're not. All right. Well, again, this is Let's Talk with Leigh and Rhonda. I am Lea Crawford. My host Rhonda Nolan is not here today but Wesley Knight has come in and he has done the thing, done the thing. Until next week you have an amazing Saturday. Get out there, work out. That's what Rhonda would say. You get out there, work out, touch your toes, touch your toes. Until next Saturday, peace and blessings. Until next Saturday, peace and blessings.

0:26:45
you

Transcribed with Cockatoo