Show Information

Episode Number: 115

Date: November 17, 2025

Duration: 30:10

Host Contact Information

Host: Justin Deese

Website: JustinDeese.com

Contact: [email protected]

Guest Contact Information

Guest: Kristin Deese

Company: Virtual CFO for the Trades

Guest Website: kristendeese.com

Summary

In this episode, Justin and Kristin recap a jam-packed travel season as new empty nesters, hitting major industry events like Pantheon, The Wealthy Plumber Hurrah, Vertical Track, Resideo, and Service World Expo. They share real-world stories from the road, from bleeding toenails at Vertical Track to people-watching in Venice Beach and Halloween in Vegas.

Justin walks through their experiment with semi-private flying on JSX and compares the experience to traditional commercial airlines, explaining why time, stress, and flexibility matter more than legroom. The conversation then shifts into business mode as they introduce the upcoming Service Manager Academy and the Freedom Blueprint Live event, talking about why developing strong service managers is such a crucial lever for owners and what they’re seeing in the 2025–2026 revenue climate for the trades.

Whether you’re a home-service owner, a service manager in training, or a contractor couple trying to design a life you love, this episode gives you a behind-the-scenes look at how Justin and Kristin think about travel, events, leadership, and the future of the trades.

Takeaways

• Trade show season is intense—but strategic. Pantheon, Wealthy Plumber, Vertical Track, Resideo, and Service World Expo each serve a different purpose, from networking to deep client work to staying ahead of industry trends.
• Partnerships are basically business marriages. Kristin compares taking on a partner to getting married—you’d better be okay being “married” to that person, because it’s a major, long-term commitment that requires intentionality, not just feelings.
• Semi-private travel (JSX) can be a game-changer. Skipping traditional terminals, security lines, and chaos gave them more time in LA and dramatically reduced travel stress—and in this case, at a fare that was less than a first-class commercial ticket.
• Relationships are the real ROI of events. Reconnecting with long-time friends, clients, and industry partners—and finally meeting Zoom-only clients in person—was a major highlight of Vertical Track and Service World Expo.
• Service managers need real training, not just a new title. Most service managers are promoted technicians who’ve never been taught leadership, coaching, or how to drive ROI—hence the launch of the 12-week Service Manager Academy.
• Freedom Blueprint Live is back in 2026. Justin and Kristin tease their next live event in Pensacola Beach and talk about why timing, location, and industry cycles matter when planning events for contractors.
• The revenue climate is shifting. Many contractors struggled to hit 2025 revenue goals, and Justin and Kristin are watching closely to see how 2026 plays out—and what owners need to do now in budgeting and planning.

Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome back & crazy fall travel season
• 02:00 – Partnerships vs. marriage: why bringing on a partner is a huge commitment
• 04:00 – Pantheon recap: massive show, great keynotes, and getting lost in the crowd
• 05:30 – The Wealthy Plumber Hurrah & Kristin’s Grand Canyon backpacking detour
• 06:30 – Vertical Track & Garage Door Freedom: finally meeting Zoom clients in person
• 07:30 – Resideo show, alarm vs. HVAC split, and their thoughts on LA vs. “Lower Alabama”
• 08:45 – Venice Beach, Muscle Beach, and world-class people watching
• 10:00 – Why Justin went hunting for alternatives to commercial airlines
• 11:15 – Discovering JSX: what semi-private flying is actually like
• 13:30 – Heading into Vegas, Halloween weirdness, and hiking Red Rock with expo friends
• 16:30 – Service World Expo recap & live podcast stage with Justin and Janeen Norquist
• 20:10 – Bonus podcast episodes dropping Thanksgiving week
• 22:00 – Launching the 12-Week Service Manager Academy: why it matters for owners
• 26:30 – Freedom Blueprint Live 2026 in Pensacola Beach
• 27:30 – Budgets, projections, and curiosity about the 2026 revenue climate
• 29:00 – Gratitude for the trades and closing thoughts

Keywords

#FreedomBlueprintPodcast #JustinDeese #KristinDeese #VirtualCFOForTheTrades #HomeService #TradesBusiness #HVAC #Plumbing #GarageDoor #ContractorCouples #BusinessPartnerships #Pantheon #WealthyPlumber #VerticalTrack #Resideo #ServiceWorldExpo #WeMeanBusiness #JSX #SemiPrivateTravel #BusinessTravel #ServiceManagerAcademy #ServiceManagerTraining #LeadershipDevelopment #OnsiteConsulting #FreedomBlueprintLive #PensacolaBeach #EmptyNestLife #EntrepreneurLife #ContractorLife

Mentioned in this episode:

Homeservicehoorah.com

Justin Deese (00:02)

Welcome back to another episode of Freedom Blueprint podcast. I am your host Justin Deese and I am joined today with my lovely special guest co-host. Guest co-host, but you are special. Not special. I can add in special, can't I? At some point I'm going to get that right. Yeah. Someday, Anyways, my amazing wife, Kristin Deese, the virtual CFO for the trades. So, ⁓

Yeah, thanks for coming and hanging out all the way in the studio. On the farm. So for at the time of recording, we're coming off, well, we're right in the middle of a pretty crazy travel season. Yes. You know, for anybody in the industry, there are certain times of the year when it just seems like all the shows happen at one time. It would be the fall. And so we're deep in it. And

All the way in the studio.

be the fall.

So I will say that, ⁓ so this is our first year, this is our first semester as Empty Nesters. Right? So we said yes to more things this year than we've ever said yes to in a same period of time at any point ever previously, even when we were on our long road trip. I think we said more, yes more in this semester than we have on any of the other ones. ⁓ But we're, think, we counted that we have been to

or first.

Six so far. We had Pantheon. I went to Pantheon. And then ⁓ Wealthy Plumber. And then Vertical Track. And then Residio. And then Expo, so five.

⁓

Pantheon.

yeah, wealthy.

Five so far. ⁓ Again, time of recording next week we're going to We Mean Business, which is pretty exciting. That's gonna be really cool event. Dave and Stephanie Pastel are putting that on. And it really specializes and focuses on couples working together, which is, know, kind of our thing. It's kind of our love language. ⁓ Because it is such a different dynamic than just partnerships.

kind of our things.

because in regular partnerships, typically when you leave for the day, you're done ⁓ and you cannot answer the phone call.

It's kind of funny. I cannot remember who I was talking to, but they were considering bringing on a partner. Just like a regular business partner, not like a life partner. And he was asking me questions about it or whatever, and asked me what I thought. And I was like, well, first of all, it doesn't matter what I think, because it's your business. But I will say, do you want to be married to this person? And he was like...

No, not really. And I'm like, well, that's basically what a partnership is. So you got to be OK being married to that person, even though you can turn it off a little easier than you can with an actual, legitimate marriage. It's a big commitment.

It is a big commitment. And it takes some intentionality. think that's where people get off on partnerships a lot of times is they just kinda, they lead with the, well this is just like marriage too, right? Like they just lead with the feeling, like I feel like this is so good and I feel like this is a great idea and what could ever go wrong? And then they jump into it and then they get into it they're like, uh-oh. Uh-oh, what do we do? What do we do? ⁓ Anyways, we won't go down that rabbit hole, but. ⁓

Anything you do, you should be intentional about it, especially bringing on a partner, because that is a big commitment.

Yeah, yeah, so to kind of recap all of our adventures. Well, I went to Pantheon solo because you were recovering from your last stint.

My last hospital, my last

⁓ visit to the one-star resort is what that was.

⁓ Pantheon is ⁓ always a great show. It's huge, like massively huge. I kind of feel like we might've actually touched on it on one of the episodes before, ⁓ it's so big that there was a couple people that I saw in passing on the first day and was like, ooh, I need to make sure that I track them down. And I never saw them again. ⁓ It's just huge, but it's a great show. And... ⁓

like the keynotes are always really good, their presentation in general of the show is really good, the expo gets better, the expo hall gets better each year. ⁓

seems

like it's getting a little bit bigger. It's not huge, but it's just getting a little bit bigger each year, which is cool.

Yep, so that was cool. That was in California. then, ⁓ we... ⁓ The wealthy plumber's hurrah was here in Pizzicola, which was fantastic because we got to be present for that and did not have to get on a plane to do it. Yeah.

Which Jared is planning on that being an annual ⁓ show. It was good.

That was an awesome.

That was was good. Spoke there. And then you guys took the booth the second day because I bugged out to go on a backpacking trip for a couple of days, which there's a whole episode about that that y'all can listen to. And then came out of the Grand Canyon and went straight to the next show, literally, which was Vertical Track. Vertical Track is the Garage Door Freedom event. ⁓

That one was fantastic because there was a lot of people that I already work with there. And so that was a really cool opportunity. There was some people that I had been working with on Zoom for a year and have never met them in person. So that was really cool. Lots of warm welcomes and that was neat.

And it was in Phoenix, which we love Phoenix. Although it rained the entire time we were...

Phoenix I

mean rain is a light it was like cloudy and misting but for them that was like feet down poor Got to have dinner with the with a non garage door Client that's that has been with virtual CFO for a couple years. So that was awesome So that was that was a good time even though I had to go to the show my flip-flops because my feet were too torn up from the height to be able to wear actually

Yeah.

Well,

your toenails were falling off. was pretty gnarly. Gnarly and awesome all at the same time because it's like, okay, well, that's a pretty bad ass move. You're like, well, I'm here, but my toenails are.

Yeah,

yeah, I'm not wearing real shoes, but it's totally fine because I could not put on shoes even if I wanted to. ⁓

So next track, Residio. Residio is a cool show. The first time you'd been to that show, second time I'd been to that show. ⁓ They don't market that a lot out to the world. they've been having, I think the show's like 30 years old. It's been around for a while. But it started out really focusing on the alarm. Yeah, the alarm side of the business. And then as Residio and Honeywell and all these kind of ⁓ grow into the

HVAC side and the indoor air quality side, it's starting to be bigger. So I don't know what the split is. I'm going to say 50-50 HVAC companies to alarm companies, but that may not be, may not be right. They do a pretty good job of separating like, if you're HVAC go here. And if you're not go here. ⁓ But that was not in J.W. Marriott's. I think that's where they have all of them. ⁓ Because next year is in a J.W. Marriott as well.

Okay,

It's like, I don't want to say it I don't remember exactly where it is, but ⁓ it is already set up and ready to go and it's ⁓ a really nice resort.

Yes, it is very nice. ⁓ L.A. is special and just a special place in general. So in the heart of downtown Los Angeles was I personally prefer the L.A. that we have, which is lower Alabama, but it's totally fine.

Yeah,

for sure. That's a more our people.

Yeah,

yeah, while we were there, we actually went from that one straight to ⁓ Expo in Vegas, but we had like two days, with a weekend basically. So ⁓ we'd spent a little bit of time in Venice Beach and Muscle Beach and just basically walked down that stretch and then

It's a pretty long stretch. is a really long stretch and the people watching is just outstanding. to none. Almost as good as Vegas and Halloween. So yeah, and then we hopped on over to Vegas and did Service World Expo.

Yeah, ServiceWorld, this was the 10th year of ServiceWorld.

Okay, wait, so we have to talk about how we got there. So we went going from LA to Vegas as a shore flight, right? So as some of you may know, Justin's got a major beef with American Airlines.

Shout out to Jordan.

Yeah, so thanks Jordy for that. ⁓ So he's got a major beef with American Airlines and so I do most of the travel logistics and scheduling booking flights and hotels and all the things and so and and I have an American credit card that is an American Airlines card that gets me all kinds of extra points and

We've got the same thing with Delta II that we've had for years.

Yeah, we do, but it's on you, not me. whatever. And so I booked all the flights. Just so happens that the flights that I chose were American, but they were the most convenient times and they were the best prices. And we were going from Pensacola to LA, from LA to Vegas, from Vegas home. And so ⁓ in the midst, think we were, I don't remember if we had left even at all yet or if we were in LA when we figured this out, but Justin started searching.

semi-private airlines to see what other options are there besides going from straight up private to straight up full out commercial. Like there's got to be a middle ground there.

And

surprisingly, there is not a lot.

There, no, that's not surprising really. mean.

to

me because I think in the world we live in, especially you think about our industry, we talk about option selling and even when you go to an airline, they're like, well, you can bump up to first class. Sitting in the plane is not my, like, I don't really care. My issue is all the hurting that we have to do and standing in line and getting bumped into people and all that kind of.

I know you like it when people touch you and then they turn around with their backpack and bump you. That's your favorite thing ever. gosh.

So anyway, so that's kind of what started this and it's because earlier in the year you had booked like everything through American all at one time. You're like, look at all my points. I'm gonna be whatever, a pilot or something. Whatever American Airlines does. And so you booked them all and then we started having problems. We had a huge issue with them. When we went on vacation this year, it was a giant mess and they totally dropped the ball and did nothing to, I won't get into that rabbit hole, but don't love them for that. And then we had another one.

where there was another issue of like just delay, delay, delay, no communication. And so at that point I started searching.

What's a better alternative to this shenanigans? Yeah, and as a CFO of the family too, there's a lot of times that I'll book a flight, not paying attention, like I'll pick the lowest fare, as long as the time works right. Like I don't do red eyes or anything like that, but I'll pick the lowest fare. And a lot of times that means that you can't change it. Right. And so then it's like, well, now we're stuck with these stupid tickets, even though we hate American Airlines. Anyway, so after you did some research, you found JSX.

So JSX is a semi-private airline. It was a hub in Dallas.

I mean, think Dallas is one of the-

Yeah,

so basically it's semi-private so the planes are much smaller maybe 30 people Yeah, 45 people depending on which flight or which which airplane it is But what's massively different about the service is that you enter through a different terminal you go through different security your bags get checked in a different way You are totally Yeah with water in it with

through with a water bottle. Water

in

Yeah,

you can take food on the plane. People had their pets like just in their laps. ⁓ It was just way more relaxed. Like the whole process of it was just so much less stressful and very fast. 20 minutes from the time that we stepped out of the Uber to the time that we were on the plane, settled and ready to go with drinks on our tray.

And we called him first and said, hey, how early do we need to be there? And lady's like, don't get here any more than 20 minutes before. I was like, OK.

Yeah. When you

go and like the waiting area is like in the hangar. Yeah. Like you're out there. You're out there in the hangar. And it was there was like places to sit and tables and whatever. But you were like out there, which was really cool. ⁓ So we get on this plane and it was just a quick little jaunt right over to Vegas. Now we posted that on social media and then all through Expo, everybody was kind of was like, you got to brought a private.

private plane over here and how was that flight and all the things. Y'all, the fare on that flight was less than an American first class ticket. Like it was, that particular flight was really inexpensive. Now we were traveling right in middle of the afternoon. I think they were trying to get butts in seats on that plane. So it was on a Saturday. The fare was really, really low because we had even called them that morning to ask if we could come early, like if we'd go earlier. Cause we were like,

ready to be out of LA and into Vegas, which I never thought I would say in my entire life. ⁓ And even the lady that you talked to was like, no, you got a really good deal.

screaming deal. Which, I here's the deal. You think about it. I mean, because we took that flight, we were able to spend the whole day roaming around with like Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive and eat at this really cool place where if we were flying a regular commercial airline, we'd have been stuck in the airport for hours and hours hours. So, yeah, even if it were twice as much as a first class ticket.

totally worth it. just wouldn't, I would have booked it and just not, I'd have been like, it's about the same price.

until

I go through and be like, what was this charge?

But pretty cool experience. Obviously they don't fly to everywhere. I will say if you were in the Dallas area, if you were in the Phoenix area, LA, Vegas, that would be the first.

Do

it at least once, like it was 100%.

Fly

every day. Now for us, we're close to Destin and they do fly to Destin but only certain times of the year and only to Dallas. So I'm already looking for the summertime reason to go to Dallas.

Yeah, or Dallas and then on to somewhere else.

Yeah, that was

somewhere else. ⁓

So anyway, so that was a really cool experience. was a experience. But yeah, and then we got to experience Vegas for... Yeah, was good times.

Right for holiday too.

Super, even ⁓ more weird than normal.

⁓

but while we were in Vegas, ⁓ we were there, we got in on Saturday. Sunday we went to ⁓ church. So the church that we go to here, ⁓ their main campus is Hendersonville. So that was really cool to be able to go down to that for a service and then did a little hiking. Monday morning we did some hiking with some people from Expo.

did some hiking.

⁓ Which by the way a bunch of people on Sunday were like, yeah, we're totally in and then by Monday morning they all flaked. Yeah

Yeah, you know who you are. You know who you are. But it's fine. Yeah, there's like eight or nine of us. Yes, went and hiked Red Rock. Great hike. It was a pretty good little jump from LA. It was like 40 minutes. Yeah. But cool hike. Really cool hike. We could have stayed out there all day. Yes. And the group we with, they were they were down. They stayed all day too. Yeah. But we had to get back into work. Yeah. So but that was that was a lot of fun. And then the expo started, man. And

As far as any of the shows go in the industry, we've probably spent more time at the expos than any other show. And what's cool about that is we have a really good network of people and so many friends that we've known for so many years. people that we work with from a, know, I don't even want to say client because it's really a friendship that we, that we've all bonded over the years. ⁓ but yeah, just to reconnect, we got to do the podcast stage. There's a second year they've done it.

Yeah.

and the second year we've gotten to do it, that was so much fun. It's always fun to do podcasts live because you can actually get feedback from people. ⁓ We had a pretty good little group of people that were gathered around. We interviewed Justin and Janeen Norquist from Just In Time out of Sandwich, Illinois, outside of Chicago. And great interview. And then later,

Illinois.

later the next day Janeen won Woman of the Year which is really awesome but we couldn't talk about it on the podcast. we didn't know. I'm assuming she didn't.

woman.

Yeah, we did.

Kept it under wraps quite well.

We didn't know, that was so cool. ⁓ Service World is always such a cool show. They are doing it again next year in Vegas as well. The first, I want to say four or five years, I feel like they did it in Vegas and then they kind of bounced around to a couple of other places. So I don't know if they're going to land in Vegas and stay in Vegas now or if they'll bounce around or not. Because the year before it was Disney.

It was at a Disney Resort, which is pretty cool. ⁓ But, you know, contractor families at Disney didn't, there's a little bit of off ⁓ there. ⁓

Contractors

can be a little rough around the edges.

Yeah, sometimes, So ⁓ all of was pretty good. And then, and again, we go to We Mean Business next week. And then, and then we've got two onsites that we're doing for clients where we go and work two days, just roll up our sleeves, let's get some stuff done. That's always fun. I love doing onsites because we really get in the work.

In it, yeah. Sit in our meetings and talk to their employees without the owners present and get all kinds of really good juicy information.

That's usually what makes owners uncomfortable. Like, we're gonna sit with your team members like, yeah, okay, we're gonna sit. It's like, you're not invited. ⁓ But it's really cool some of the information that comes out of there. Anyway, so that's fun. So that's gonna kind of round us out because then after that, we get to go to North Carolina where our son is and we're all gonna.

No, you gotta find something else to do.

you know, Addie's flying in, we're flying in, we're all coming from different parts of the country, but we're in a beach house and are doing Thanksgiving at the beach house. And I think, I hope that Zach invited some of his buddies. ⁓

⁓ yeah, he did. He's got some his

submarine guys that don't go home for Thanksgiving that we're going to get to feed and it's going to be a lot of fun. A lot of foul language.

Yes, I know. I know, I invited my mom the other day and then I was like, hmm, I wonder if that was a good idea. But she's like, I don't travel during Thanksgiving. I'm like, I don't blame you.

But yeah. gosh, I feel like we should probably sprinkle in a little bit of.

of actual work. You say actual work, I'll say I did not get to participate a whole lot in the things that were going on in Expo because just with everything going on, I had to get client calls in. So there was a lot of time that I spent ⁓ working during some of those shows. But ⁓ yeah, there's definitely, we've got a lot in the...

⁓ you know what? I forgot too. We ended up doing ⁓ several podcasts. Yes. Just around, around Service Expo. Besides doing the podcast stage, we ended up just kind of impromptu doing a couple of them. There's some really, really good ones that are coming out. They're going to come out the week of Thanksgiving. We've got all of them dropping the week of Thanksgiving. And it's, we've got one with Doug Wyatt, which was really cool. Matthew Abbott. That was a good one. We've got the Justin and Janeen episode coming out. We've got

the Heiken episode with the...

Well,

I was saving the best for last, but we've got the hiking episode that we're doing as well. And then we had one where we interviewed Julian Crawford, who is a 20 year old young man out of the Orlando area that owns a ⁓ HVAC company. ⁓ we actually met him on the hike and then in talking to him through the hike, we learned a little bit about his story and about how he even ended up standing there hiking with us.

Really sharp kid. For being so young, just really outgoing, asks really good questions.

And is plugged in. I he's plugged in, man. He's, I think about it. I even told him, said, you know, we were probably in business five or six years before we even realized there was a network of people. ⁓ And he stumbled upon one at 18 years old that he went to and he met Tom Peregrino there. And you have to listen to that episode because it's a really, really good story. And it's funny because as he's telling me, he says something like, yeah, I was really lucky. And I'm thinking,

dude nothing about what you just did had anything to do with I mean I guess your timing was important but this this dude executed that that's what he executed at the right time he was listening to what he anyway so I won't spoiler alert but definitely check out that podcast when it drops I'm very excited for that and it'll be just a couple weeks

So what else do we have going on?

What else do we have going on? ⁓ we have a service manager academy.

Okay,

so you gotta like pump that up a little more. This is like a big launch. It is a big launch. new product. Yeah. And ⁓ I think that it's time to like just kick the door right on open for that one.

Yeah, so it's interesting because I've obviously over my career, I've trained a lot of service managers, whether it be internally or externally. And we really have an entire system and process that we've been teaching for years now. And so what we're going to do is have a 12 week training course that we're going to do with them, with the individuals. part of it.

Part of the reason that we wanted to lean in on this part of it is for our journey, that was like one of the best hires that we ever, like once we hired a good service manager and started to teach them what to do, it started to free our time up just a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. And what that did is it kind of snowballed this whole, ⁓ well now we can work on the business and for an owner, it's just like one of the most crucial hires. And just like virtual CFO,

They're like, well, I need a training. I need somebody to do my accounting. They don't really know what to do.

Well, you know, how most where do most service managers come from? Most service managers come from their night in their night in and they were a really great technician. ⁓ The owner says or assumes if they're a great technician, they're going to be a great service manager. And then when you go to a technician, you say you want to be a service manager. They're like, yeah.

All

of them are like, yeah, because that means I've set it at death's Right, right, right. I make way more money.

And so just the things that made them a great technician doesn't necessarily mean that's going to transfer right over into a great leader. You have to teach them the leadership skills. So that's what the Service Manager Academy is, is teaching them the leadership skills, the daily, weekly, how hourly things that they need to be doing in order to be able to provide the return on investment. Because what happens is you take that

normally does not.

that lead tech, you pull them out of the field so they're not generating the revenue they were before, we night them in onto a salary, and then ⁓ really what we need is for very quickly them to be able to provide a return on investment by driving the rest of the team forward and growing that team. But they are not necessarily gonna know how to do that right off the top. ⁓ So getting them through a proper training program is essential to be able to.

for the business owner to see that return on investment.

Well, not only, so here's the other thing, is that this is not a...

So this is not ⁓ necessarily a theory class, right? Like it's not a let's meet and do this whole mindset thing and about winning and hashtag winning and all that stuff. There is tangible.

this is a how-to guide. It is not, this is a how-to, these are the forms you use, this is when you do it, this is the difference between ⁓ coaching and training, and this is what all this, this is how you hold a meeting. So it's all those steps that are in there in order for them to come out and really be ⁓ able to execute. Because so many of them are really good technicians, but they don't know, to them that's all natural.

When you go, hey, just go teach Jimmy over there what you do, they're like, well, I don't know, it's pretty easy. Like, don't be stupid and talk to the customer. Well, that doesn't really give them what they need, so.

If you want to find out some more information about the Service Manager Academy, just simply go to servicemanagertraining.com and you can find all the information and set up a call to find out if it's a right fit for you. Because that's part of the trick too, is making sure that it's a right fit. It's not for everybody. And there is a couple of different classes, so we try to make sure and group people together with kind of the same size businesses to make sure that... ⁓

that the information is relevant and they're able to action it. Because really, depending on your size, there are some different steps that take place.

What else we got?

the other thing that we have going on is our event. Yeah. So we did an event in May of 2025 that was great. And so we've got another one scheduled on the books for April of 2026, April 16th and 17th here in Pensacola. Pensacola Beach specifically. So there'll be some stuff coming out about that, but that's exciting. We try to pick a time of year where it's not so much competing with all the other events in terms of time of the year.

Also, April is a fantastic time to be here and we don't have to worry about hurricanes. that is great too.

Yeah, information on that is freedomblueprintlive.com. If you want to get some more information on that coming up. Yeah, that's 26. It's hard to believe that we're almost all the way through 2025.

We're all. I

know, you know, I have caught myself recently starting to write twenty twenty six already and I'm like, no, no, it's still twenty twenty five. I know me too. I know me too. But right now is the time of year where we start doing budgets and projections and goals and everything for twenty twenty six. So there's been running through a lot of those projections lately. It starts. You really start thinking about what next year is going to look like. And from. ⁓

That's funny because I'm usually behind.

just a climate in general in terms of our industry. I am curious to see what 2026 is going to look like. 2026 from a revenue standpoint has been rough for a lot of people. 2025. See? You did it. 2025. 2025 for a lot of people has, it just, their revenue just, they're just struggling to hit the goals that they thought they were going to hit from a revenue standpoint. So I'm super curious to what happens next year with all of that.

So much going on. We're in such a cool industry. And one of the cool things about it is it's a constant moving target. And part of what's frustrating about it is it's a constant moving target. So it really takes a special kind of person to love the industry that we're in. So yeah, I think that's it. We really just wanted to kind of shoot the breeze, talk about some things that we've had going on here in the last couple of weeks, some things we have going on here in the future. And yeah, if we can ever be any help, don't hesitate to reach out.

But until next time, thanks for checking us out.