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How Divorce Impacts Business Valuation: Family Law Expert Insights · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Ben Town here, and today I'm joined by my dear friend Megan Thompson to talk about business valuations in divorces and compare it to other kinds of valuations.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Megan, can you tell us, us, all of us, a little bit about yourself?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a forensic accountant.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm mostly practice in Santa Clara County, uh, doing almost exclusively family law.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's, you know, I do business valuations, separate property tracing, income available for support.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Been doing this for this year, will be my 21st year of working in this industry.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your career can drink.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a CPA, uh I'm certified valuation analyst, and I'm certified in financial forensic.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Most of your business valuation work is in the divorce context.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, two people are splitting up.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's a business involved.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what why does this happen?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what, you know, why is valuation part of a divorce?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because uh businesses are community property if you start a business during marriage.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I like to give my little caveat before I give a presentation, which is I am not an attorney, I am an accountant, I can't give legal advice or make legal representations or opine as to the law.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that being said, I work in the law all the time.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And as my good friend Ted Israel says, I can read.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, when I you can read we can read the case law and understand what it says and uh work with the attorneys to apply that law.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially, a business is an asset, it's an asset to the community, it's something that needs to be divided in a divorce.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha, gotcha.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So when I do evaluation, and that's as you know, basically what I do exit planning, business valuations, all the things.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I do them, it's for a range of things, usually, like I said, tax reporting, uh, gifting, buying and selling companies.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so in each one of these instances, there's a definition of value that that I have to adhere to in order to kind of know what the rules are.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, know what the rules are, know what the guidance is, and kind of know where you're going.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, um, whether I'm using fair market value or fair value or strategic value, um we we know we know the rules as you know as different as baseball and cricket.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know your world.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know just enough about your world to know that I'm I'm not cut out for your world.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in your world, what what is the what value definition do you guys have to use?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So generally we're using marital value.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and marital value uh usually just means we're calculating the value of the business without any discounts or premiums.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's really related again, going into some case law here, but you know, there's always uh you know argument on any any type of uh analysis.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um but there is a case called marriage of honor, and that sort of set the definition of marital value.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so that's kind of what we look to.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but generally speaking, in valuing a business, you're looking for a hypothetical buyer and hypothetical seller, but in family law, nobody's hypothetical.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know, they we we know who, you know, these are known entities.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh that along with the fact that there are assets that you would tend to include in a marital valuation that would not be included in a regular valuation.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm selling my business, like cash, like like accounts receivable a lot of the times, like um shareholder loans can be included sometimes.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so things that you would normally back out in order to get to a value for sale for a you know partnership agreement, something like that, um, you include those in your marital valuation because if I have a pile of cash sitting in a bank account, it's part of the value of the business.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I were to give it to a third party, they're not getting my cash.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if I have a spouse, they own half that cash.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they get half of that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And thank thanks.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you actually explained, you know, the the point I was gonna bring up that, yeah, a lot of times you will exclude the cash, or you know, conversely, I I don't tend to uh play in the excess cash field, but you know, a lot of appraisers do.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: They have to decide what's needed for the business, what's not.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with you, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because you just say all the cash is assuming the business is community property, all the cash is then owned by both.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I will say that that we do sometimes have to do that if we're doing a sort of a capitalization of earnings method.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're using that and you're not considering the assets in your evaluation, then you would want to add in the excess cash to say, hey, there's there's more cash here than we would be, you know, potentially be considering.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's different adjustments like that that you would make.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now because all of what you're doing in the business valuation arena is focused on family court.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and all those rules are from court cases.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that that all makes sense because that's in that little little pond.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when I look at rules and guidance, it's really at, you know, the internal revenue code or uh gap guidance.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And some there are some court cases that are involved with that, certainly.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I can read as well.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, like on the tax side in particular, there's there's a lot of court cases that are that are important.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But coming back to you, really all of the the guidance on how what to do and how to do it um comes from these court cases.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So what what are that's that's hard.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe explain why that's hard.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean the the very basics of business valuation are going to be the same across you know all forms, like any any type of business valuation, the the it comes down to the um the analysis.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we all start in the same place.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking at cash flow, we're looking at assets.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the the things that change with the the family courts will be things that are um separate community property uh apportionment type things, which uh there are there's case law that says if you had a a business before marriage, then technically that is your separate property.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the community can obtain an interest in that business, but it doesn't transmute using legal terms here, but it doesn't change to be a community asset necessarily unless you you specifically do that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh that's where we end up relying heavily on case law.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, either the business was separate before marriage or it changed fundamentally during marriage, and you know, trying to argue that there's a separate component there.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that that's where a lot of the case law comes in.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's also the difficulty with the fact that this is a going concern with cash flow into the future, and any value of a business assumes the cash flow into the future.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're doing a discounted cash flow method or something like that, that the courts here, while it hasn't been tested a lot recently.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Generally speaking, uh most of our courts will reject anything that relies on a discounted cash flow method or anything that with projections into the future.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I know we have some colleagues who have uh made some arguments as of late that this this should be changed, and we're working to kind of educate the courts to explain that this isn't really um it's it's not valid to reject these on out of hand.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, but the way we work now is mostly looking at historical data.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um why is that?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that because the anything that occurs after data separation is the separatizers' separate property.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the courts have trouble differentiating between future cash flows that will be the separatizers' cash flows and historical cash flows, which you and I understand the future cash flows are what drive the value of the business.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the good will value is is is derived from.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when we start relying on projections, the court tends to not like that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's just they they have trouble looking at projections in the future, especially I would say, in cases where projections aren't normally done.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're dealing with a lot of small, closely held businesses.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um when we're not if if you don't have a big business that's that's got you know a accounting department running projections, it's you know, a guy who runs his construction business or whatever, the court sees the more reliable data to be the historical data.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's it's totally understandable, right?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, from from that standpoint, if you have this person who has never touched QuickBooks or whatever uh before and has their admins send send the books over to the uh their CP tax CPA once a year kind of thing, they're they're probably not in a great position to understand the financials enough to give you an accurate projection, even if they weren't biased, and of course, they probably are pretty biased, which we you know, in certain situations we all are, of course.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it's of course our job to be independent and unbiased, but you know, be very aware of where everybody stands in you know, as stakeholders in in any any issue.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that's also why I don't love personally doing a lot of litigation because everybody is just you know on their own side.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: However, I love keeping people out of litigation for that particular uh particular reason.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I if I had to guess on the you know why the courts lean this way, it it is exactly that reason that that you know there there is inherent bias that that you can't be avoided on you know, the there is one party who wants the business to be worth more, there's one party who wants the business to be worth less.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so to rely on the projections of one of those parties, you know, that's going to be difficult for the courts to do, where we have this historical data that has been vetted by, you know, probably a third-party tax preparer, CPA, has been sent to the IRS, signed under penalty of perjury, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's reliable data, as long as you know the the cash flows are reasonable, why why wouldn't we use that data for you know determining our potential business value?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, that that's that's that's absolutely right.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, I mean, only one a lot of times only one of the parties actually has information about the business at all.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The the in-spouse has that, and the other party, the outspouse just doesn't most of the time.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and certainly there in a lot of situations you have you know both spouses in the business, but uh a lot of other times you'd have to be taking the kind of taking the word of it from uh from one of the parties.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you can we've all been there.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can beat up projections all we want, but unless excuse me.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: We can beat up projections all we want, but unless we really are starting from a reasonable position, we're just never gonna get to um to the tr you know the the true answer or you know a reasonable answer.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the other thing with when you're in court, uh the the goal, my goal is is to have as few variables as possible for the judge to have to decide on.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: What we're trying to do and uh you know is narrow the legal decisions that need to be made and and uh make it so that our um our analyses are as clear and concise as possible for the court.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's another thing that that that kind of differentiates what I do is that I'm doing this for a judge.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's my ultimate goal um and and the ultimate like reader of my information.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to make it so that they can understand it, number one, and can find a way to fit it into case law.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and and they can rule on it based on uh, you know, I can present it to them based on what case law my attorney, the attorney for my client, is arguing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so how does, okay, that brings up an interesting, interesting point.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: How does that dynamic work?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, especially with some of our call, you and some of our colleagues, and you know, had a lot of discussions around, hey, we're really trying to assist the court.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yet at the same time, you're being you're generally being retained and paid by one side or the other.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Although, of course, the joint retention thing was a big question we were talking about recently.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but usually, yeah, somebody is paying one one side or the other expert to to have um to do the work, have an opinion.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe maybe you can talk about the the dichotomy there and you know, hired guns and all that stuff.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: So like the bottom line is I'm an independent expert.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say that to my clients very often.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I am an independent expert.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I am not a hired gun.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am not your advocate.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's your attorney's job.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you come to me and you say, Hey, you know, I want you to make this value as high as possible, and I want you to put this here, put that, I'm not doing any of that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: That is not happening.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I will not do just whatever my client says.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: What I will do is work within the parameters of the law and the reality of the situation and work with the attorney who is making a specific legal argument.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then what generally happens, especially if there's two sides, uh, so I'm the expert for you know, wife and the other expert is for husband.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: We will often have a meet and confer where we meet together and we lay out a very simple side-by-side for the court that says, we agree on all of these things.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not even discussing them.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: They're off the table.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: We agree on, you know, the inputs, the net income, all this stuff.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: We disagree on replacement compensation.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be like one thing.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Here's our difference, and here's why.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: What you know, they they think that you know, their client is a very common example.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my side said he sleeps at the office, he's working there all the time.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I, you know, he should the you know, the the replacement compensation should be very big.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, the client says, I only work 20 hours a week, real or really, you know, we should reduce it by a lot.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the two experts are getting very different information from the different clients.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had this in a case once where I was uh the court's expert, and I had a meeting with husband, and he said one thing, and I had a meeting with wife, and she said a completely different thing, totally different realities as to how much the uh owner spouse was working in the business.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so in that case, there is no right answer for the experts.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the experts have to present that to the court, and then it's up to the parties to plead their case to the judge and say, hey, this is my reality, and the other one says this is their reality, and the judge gets to decide those things.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's there's no coming together on that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right, just two different positions, and the the the trier of fact needs to get to the fact.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um the uh so stuff like re replacement compensation.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um why would somebody on one side or the other want a higher or lower replacement compensation?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is what does that really mean for the net result?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean if you're if your replacement compensation is higher, it reduces your cash flow.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if your replacement compensation is lower, that increases your cash flow.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the the party who wants the business to be higher is going to likely be arguing for a uh lower replacement compensation.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have had this this discussion with attorneys where you know I'm trying to explain that to them in you know, in terms of them arguing, well, you know, well, I want the replacement compensation to be much higher.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, do you?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, what it should be whatever the reality is.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's the answer.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh that dovetails into potentially income available for support.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to keep those things in mind while business valuation is its own silo.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: We also have this issue of support, and so those often work together.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are multiple cases, you know.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can think of like uh the marriage of McTiernan is a very famous case that was, you know, he was you know a director, the right director of uh he did the yeah, of big blockbuster movies.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the courts basically found that his business isn't worth anything.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's a guy with a clipboard walking around.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can't replace him.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, his replacement compensation would completely wipe out any value that would have to this business.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: But pretty sure his support award was pretty high.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, those those things kind of go together.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have to keep that in mind uh when when you're valuing the business.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like uh I have to tell some clients that uh fairly often that your business doesn't have any value, but good news, you do.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: The uh that's that's the important part.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in fact, that that tends to apply to people like us, where our you know our firms aren't worth a ton, but you know, me it's really you know what we do and what we bring personally to the uh to the situation.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's useful and valuable.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: The general mantra from uh the client is without me, this business wouldn't be worth anything.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's always like and of course, always bearing in mind their what their bias is or what we think their bias should be, because maybe they don't understand it very well.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: We don't, you know, we don't always know.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so you know what let me let me let me get to this.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: The um in family law business valuations, there there are definitely some key issues that are different from from what I do.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um things like the you know valuation date, this data separation, data trial, um service versus manufacturing business, uh different definitions of goodwill.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've kind of alluded to that.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then you actually just talked about the double dip uh issue.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I those were some just some of the things I think we were talking about before to kind of um to bring out.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, where do you want to start?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, yeah, talk about the maybe the the dates.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: The dates.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: So um generally speaking, assets are valued at date closest to trial.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that is that is the date that we your default date for valuing a business would be the most current date that you have available.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um however, uh there is a way to petition the court to ask for an alternate data valuation.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that is usually done.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And this, you know, now we're getting into like legal issues on that, where uh a service business may be a type of business where you ask for an alternate data valuation at data separation instead.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, there may be other dates, alternate dates that you would want to uh look at, depending on you know what happened within the company.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but usually it's because after data separation in a service business, whether the business goes up in value or down in value, it's due to the separatizer's efforts, or it can be considered due to that separatizer's efforts.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the the separatizer, I mean, that that sounds like a really crappy action movie, but what does that actually mean?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the the the uh the owner of the business, the person who's running the business, they're they're now you know, it's their separate property.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're married, uh the the community uh you know, community income based on your time, labor, and skill during marriage.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you acquire community property, that's how you acquire community income.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: When you're working, you know, I if I'm if I'm working right now and I'm making, you know, my hourly rate, half of that hour is my husband's rate.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's he even though he's not doing my job, 50% of what I earn is his.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Unless you have a prenup, not gonna get into that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's how community property works.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Once your data separation is established, everything after that date that you earn is your separate property.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the courts have tended to uh consider the efforts after data separation.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, going back to that discussion we were having about why they don't like a DCF or a discounted cash flow method.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Is that once that person is working after data separation, should those efforts be continued to be considered as part of the value of the business?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a community asset, but it's also running because this person is running it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: So and you know, then we get into replacement compensation, whether that just accounts for all of that.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but the big problem that we tend to run into is the person after data separation has complete control.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they can decide not to work anymore, and then the business goes off a cliff, or nothing, or it's nothing anymore because they haven't been putting in any effort because they want to try to reduce the value of the business, or something happens after data separation, and all of a sudden the business is worth a ton.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Does the community get to participate in that, even though it was something that the separate the person, the owner did after data separation?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not clear.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that that doesn't necessarily have to do with how you go about the measurement, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's kind of an argument for the attorneys, and you're giving them information about what that might do to impact their argument and how they would want to argue the situation.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you you basically get to, hey, this is this is what the value is on this date with this set of uh set of assumptions, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about goodwill a little bit?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's all possible.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I I think, first off, I think you guys in family law use the term goodwill quite a bit differently than than I do, potentially.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Potentially.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: It could be yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the same.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and there's a bunch of overlap and at certain times and sometimes not.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you use the term goodwill?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean in the context of a business and yeah, all that?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're looking at goodwill, we're looking at the uh amount of income generated, or not the income, the value of the business that's generated above and beyond what the assets are generating.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so because usually what I'm doing is an excess earnings method, because that's what the courts have accepted for a very long time.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we continue to do that.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what we're looking at is um, you know, the cash flow, you know, with uh with a discount or with a capitalization rate applied, and uh, you know, uh that multiplier becoming our our goodwill portion of the business.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are states that I know of because I did a I did a presentation for the AICPA uh where we did a panel discussion uh with different forensics in different states, and they differentiate personal versus enterprise goodwill and actually pull out personal goodwill from the business, saying that that is uh an asset of uh that's a separate asset and it needs to be not valued as part of the community estate.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um my understanding of California law from what I have done mostly, there's always argument uh you know against things, but is that personal goodwill is part of the community estate.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't separate the two, we don't back that out.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh in terms of calculating what the uh the separatizers portion would be rather than calculating what good personal goodwill is, we would be calculating a replacement compensation.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that you have to be account for it differently, basically, right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I I certainly account for personal goodwill differently or separately, I guess, than trying to back out a particular number or quantify it specifically.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't quantify a personal goodwill specifically in in California for family law purposes, in other states they do.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's cool.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: That must have been a pretty cool panel, though, uh hearing everybody uh together.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it must have been pretty big too.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there were there were like a thousand people in the audience.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it was pretty crazy.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: What was that was that live or was that Zoom or what was that?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was a Zoom, it was a Zoom presentation that we did uh in February 2025.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh dang.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I missed it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't why did I why did I not?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I rebroadcast, I don't know.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty fun.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was a it was a good one.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent, excellent.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, so we touched on like things like the double dip, where there's different different components uh about that uh compensation.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, but there are some things about business valuation, and we we touched on this for goodwill, where there's you know easily recognizable stuff between what I do and what you do.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: You could pick up my report and you know re easily understand what's going on there and vice versa.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even though a lot of the you know some of the detail and some of the rules are are different and uh about how we do things.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, like well, I mean maybe we can just chat a bit about you know some of the things that are the same.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: We already talked about replacement comp.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we handle things like related party transactions.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: So when that's not an arm's length transaction.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, usually what I do is we need to back that out.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe you can add some flavor from the family law side.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So related party transactions, depending on what they are, uh, we would generally back them out.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing that you have to remember, so things like especially with um shareholder loans, we have to then not forget about them.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that happens a lot, is that you'll back them out of the business valuation because you're normalizing the balance sheet and pulling out third-party uh loans, but that's still a liability or an asset, whichever way you're going, of the community.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if you know, if the community put money in to this business, and now you're pulling out this loan that they, you know, that they gave to the business, that's something that that they should still get paid back for.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we'll just leave them in and be have it be part of the business valuation.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but usually we'll we'll pull it out, normalize it, and then I have to kind of remind the attorneys not not to leave that on the table, not to forget.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's like you know,$250,000, that's not small potatoes.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we want to we want to address in property division.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's also there's a lot of uh, you know, if you've ever worked in a with a closely held business, you know, there's a lot of weird stuff that goes on.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we've done that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, there there's there could be family loans.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: There, I've had things where there's other businesses that are unrelated and are maybe would be considered a hobby.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that happens fairly often.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Someone's, you know, I had I had one where someone was sort of funding their their art, you know, so their the business was doing great and it was lending all this money to this other business.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then when we're doing the property division, we have to remember because usually when there's a business that has a big negative value, we just kind of like ignore it.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: You don't usually have someone buy out, but this is real money that went from one business to another, and we need to think about accounting for it, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because the I mean, family court is what do you call it?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh court of equity.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Court of equity, yep.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, got it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so meaning that, you know, whereas I might not need to think about other stakeholders and other sides of the equation outside of the valuation, although we do in a lot of a lot of other situations, but um, it's not the same as hey, if you take it out of here, you gotta put it in there, like you're talking about um, you know, the the uh the shareholder loan loans and you know, kind of other were you being fair to the community and and those types of discussions?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really a discussion we have for you know you know, an estate tax filing or something.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have a break-up fiduciary duty issue on uh, or at least not about the valuation, generally speaking.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, cool.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me let me ask how well it is early 2025 now.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you've just done your your your major uh national uh speaking event, and um you know, you know what I don't hear anymore is any talk about COVID, which is perfectly fine by me, by the way.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: But we're really we're not that far out from that that period.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, started in 2020, and depending on who you talk to, it ended in 23 or early 24.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there have been impacts on on businesses.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what what are some of the we both have had to deal with this, uh we're both practicing through, you know, right through.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um what are some of the common things that you saw on in your that were problems in your business valuation practice, side of your practice, uh, due to COVID?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the so I mean there's obviously the the sort of regular stuff that needs to be adjusted out, PPPs and the SBA loans that people took, the things that were forgiven, you know, things that are anomalous items uh that would need to be backed out.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: But in like general, we saw in most businesses or or a lot of businesses either a spike or a dip in income.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what that's what we're seeing across the board.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some some companies did crazy business.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there seems to be sort of a consensus among people that oh, all businesses suffered during COVID.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then that is not true.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: There were a lot of businesses that I saw that just did amazing during COVID.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you have to consider that in the same way you consider the ones that, you know, dipped during COVID.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um you were selling webcams, you are on it.
• 32:03
  unknown: Exactly.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how did Zoom do during fun?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's just like businesses, you know.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I saw like a lot, you know, a lot of construction businesses did really well.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh depending on at least for a period of time, yeah.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and depending on what kind of construction you're in.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: During home construction, people are sitting in their houses hating their lives, wanting to fix up.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know I was one of them, fixing up my bathroom.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like someone in here being like staring at my bathroom all day, being like, I gotta get that fixed.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then and the the construction guys were doing or the the the construction businesses were doing really well.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you were commercial construction, maybe not as well.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you, you know, if you own a bunch of commercial properties that you're renting out, also not great.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, so you have to look at that.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you also we also had to look at whether they had government assistance that replaced that income.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a big piece that we need to dive further into when we're looking at certain companies is you know, they got assistance, you can't just automatically back all of that out because some of it was a replacement and it sort of normalizes the income statement.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's what I was seeing.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing were you seeing similar things?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: How are you dealing with that right now?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's really interesting because uh obviously everybody had to deal with it, had to deal with it in our industry, period.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and everybody kind of had their, you know, there there's some pieces of it that I think everybody agrees with, and some pieces that are you know specific to to how we how we do.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one of the things that I tended to do was kind of skip it.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if to the extent that there was um you know a noticeable break from normalcy in that year, well also I get to get the uh I have the advantage of almost always needing to look at expectations, look at you know f forward-looking uh uh earnings.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I can say, hey, look, that was un unusual.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get to that realistic expectation going forward?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes we were looking at 2019 uh results to see, hey, in a quote unquote normal year, or even before that, especially early on, what do you do?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially as we got later and later, where you know, if there were companies that were gonna go out of business, they already had.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know everybody else was gonna be a survivor at that point, you know, we're very likely, you know, such that we could say, okay, well, let's get back to what does normal look like, period, um, no matter what 2020 or 2021, 22, 22 did.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was that's how we do.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just looking forward to 2027 or so when we can look five years back and still not have COVID too much COVID in there.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would be good.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that I think you're right that the I it's almost easier on the companies that sort of dipped during COVID than the ones that spiked because trying to trying to adjust for like and normalize that is really speculative, I feel like.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: And with the dips, I can just kind of you know, I can it's easier to justify just kind of not waiting that year or waiting it differently or something.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if it spikes, especially if you have uh a party who is looking to have a higher value and trying to explain to them why that doesn't belong in there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it may not just may the company may just not be worth that anymore.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even even if they were at the time, which is an arguable point anyway, but even if they were, they're certainly not now because they've come back down to normal.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is something where we definitely would diverge on on this, is that I'm dealing with a lot of people who uh at this point in time were separated maybe in 2022, because we have, you know, you'll have a data separation.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh if you have a data separation in 2022 and you're dealing with 21, 22, as you're like last year's just before data separation, and then starting in 23, something changes.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: How do you know whether that's because COVID's over or whether that's because that's data separation?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And either party is gonna argue something different, and so that's where it becomes a little bit trickier, I think, in the family law arena.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't envy that.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, so okay, talking about those businesses that you're working with, and and yeah, bearing in mind that you do have a lag a lot of times, you know, looking at the the the uh date of the data you're looking at because it takes so long to get through the the court system.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm usually not looking that far back, or at least I try not to.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um what kind of businesses are you working with?
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: What sizes, industries, I don't know.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: What what what about your practice?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean mine's mostly small, closely held businesses.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of, you know, dentists, doctors, uh construction, um, you know, things that you just yeah, small, closely held businesses.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the the one of the things that I do also is something called a sensitivity analysis, a lot of times, where we kind of look and say, is this a business or is this a job?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's kind of how how big the businesses are sometimes I'm looking at.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, where you know, I check to see whether their cash flow uh exceeds their replacement compensation, like essentially, and says, is this even worth valuing at this point?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the the problem uh that we run into again with family law is uh you have to divide all assets.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you have a business, a business is a community asset to be divided, and someone's gonna want to know what the value is uh of that business and whether it's whether it's worth anything or whether it's you know not.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so and so you have you have to assess these things.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I tend to have also smaller engagements where even though this business isn't making, you know, a billion dollars a year, someone needs to know what the value is.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's definitely significant to the people involved.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, and considering that you work with largely with small businesses, I mean, what are some of the big issues that you do encounter when you're trying to value them?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've gone over a bunch of them, but any anything else like is there uh um a secret gotcha or a um just something hidden that people wouldn't think about in the uh as an issue in this area?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing we have is personal expenses being run through the business.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's huge.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: That is, you know, whether we have to dig into the books and really like assess every single personal expense that you're using.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have people who hang their mortgage through the business, maybe, or you know, I had a guy where you know, we found a Louis Vuitton purchase, and we're like, I don't think that that's a business expense.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that was for the wife.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that doesn't seem ordinary and necessary to me.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that would be cool.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, you know, but um, so you know, just things like that.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've seen some egregious personal expenses, right?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not exactly what you alluded to.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: This was not for the wife, uh, that kind of stuff.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in that case, then we not only have like an ad back for the business valuation, but potentially a reimbursement claim for the spouse that you know paid for it.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um we uh we also, you know, uh I mean people people run anything through sometimes.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: You find some and then you know, I do get squeaky clean books every now and then.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I more often than not, I I have to do somewhat significant addbacks.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I have I have kind of a personal theory about this that that you end up getting more.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a size thing too.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the smaller businesses often have more just crazy stuff in in their in their books.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do wonder if the people who if if there is a correlation between divorce work and crazy crap getting put through the books and all the other purposes for valuation and and having clean books.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't I don't know.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: There may be a logical study there.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the other the other piece of that that is is the uh accuracy of the books and like what I'm getting.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm sure you know in a big bigger business, I usually get uh pretty good records.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'll get I'll get QuickBooks or I'll get you know something, a big general ledger or something like that that I can rely on.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the smaller you get in the business, the more it's I took my bank statements at the end of the year and I added up all the deposits, and that's my income.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then I just kind of guessed on the expenses or whatever.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then you get to the point where, you know, they've submitted this to the IRS, and that's what they believe is accurate.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: How accurate is it?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Number one.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And number two, I now have a mess on my hands for a business is probably not worth very much.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: How much are you gonna spend to have me recreate your books for five years?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just not cost effective.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's another thing I think that I have to consider that you don't necessarily have to as much, is that I really have to give my clients like a reality check about uh a cost benefit of pursuing certain things and say, hey, yeah, yeah, we could go in and add back every single expense.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: We could go in and you know reopen the books and and sit there and go through it with a fine-toothed comb.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how much are we gonna get out of that versus how much you have to pay me to do that?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not always a net positive.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it it I mean that that is a really good thing.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think the you know, I I don't have a direct corollary for for what I do.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, sometimes what you know, what we what we talk about is like maybe in a in a uh gift and estate scenario, just kind of giving just a super top-level uh back of the napkin talk through of what value could be so that people can go off and make their, you know, make some plans around transactions and that kind of thing.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but you know, I don't have to defend none of that court until I at least not until I do the valuation and sign off on it and you know it becomes a part of it, part of the tax return.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think the other issue that that springs to mind when you say things like that is when you're working with these people, you know, there's there's a business that's established and someone's been running it, it's all kind of above board.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: When come to me, trust is gone.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: So so it's really hard to overcome that piece as well, to say, well, here's the books I got.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they say, Well, I don't trust this person at all anymore.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: How do I rely on what they've given you?
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to kind of you know make sure that we're uh checking against supporting documents or you know, making sure that the client is, you know, on board with what the books say or you know, anything in in the in that respect.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: And from that standpoint.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Totally similar to like a partnership dispute or a um yeah, a lot of situations like that.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh yeah, I mean, even a little more personal, obviously, when you're talking about a spouse.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: I could I could just chat with you all afternoon here, but we can't do that because we actually have real work to do.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Two last personal questions.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: So why do you find what you do rewarding?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's probably there's two reasons why I find it rewarding.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'll say the more selfish one first and then I'll come into the other one.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I love puzzles.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it is very interesting to me to put together all of the pieces of things and come out with an answer and like understand it.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, like to to relate that to other accounting professions, you know, when you do a general ledger like or a general journal entry and you get to the bottom and it's zero, and you and you've nailed the like the allocation and it's perfect, or your your your T account, that's to me that's that's what makes us CPAs, yeah, exactly.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand why other people don't think this is amazing.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: The best thing, but like that's like I love like put like someone has a separate property claim, and I'm you know, I'm tracing it through and I figure out where it went and it goes to their house, and here's their claim, and now I have an answer, and I've put together all the pieces.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's the first thing.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the second thing is like, you know, a lot a lot of people will say to me, like, you know, how do you do divorce work?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's so depressing, or whatever, or you know, you know, how can you, or you know, on the other side, how can you take advantage of people who are getting divorced?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, my response to that is like my job is to help people who are already going through this process.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's I'm I'm not telling them to get divorced, they're not, you know, they've decided on their own that they need uh to do that to to start this process.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: They they're getting divorced, but I am there to help them get through it as painlessly as possible in terms of the financial aspect.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: They have these financial issues and they need to resolve them.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And my goal is to try to get it through get them through this process quickly, efficiently, uh as cost effective as I possibly can.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I tell my clients, like, I'm not trying to make my work more, I don't I don't need more work.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want more.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's always nice to have work, but you know, I'm I'm a little bit up to my eyeballs at the moment.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I'm I want to help them get to a place where they can be done and through with it and be like, I've resolved everything, maybe I didn't get everything I wanted, but I I have gone through this process and I am on the other side where I need to be.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that Megan helped get me there.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hopefully that means you have at least on occasion a few uh satisfied and grateful clients.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh since I don't go ahead.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's actually really nice.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of people have have like thanks me for my work, which you wouldn't really expect.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a financial person, like what, but like have said, you know, nice things to me.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Some people said mean things, but like a lot of clients have you know said thank you so much for your help with this process.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's been it's been really helpful.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like you in particular have helped me through.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely, totally believe it.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the second question.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just so so the camera knows, I mean, that that was that was sincere, not sarcastic.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um second question.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Second and last question.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: What are you reading right now?
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh god, what am I reading right now?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading, uh like you is this like supposed to be like a business valuation thing that I read?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the this is this is a a new question that I'm just popping in because I'm because I'm interested.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I will tell you, but it's gonna be bad because I'm a basic B.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading right currently I am reading Onyx Storm, which is uh uh yeah, fourth wing.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Fourth wing dragon book.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I that's because when I like I I either watch TV or I read because I need to turn my brain off.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's totally that's the thing that I'm reading.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I uh listened to that to well the first one on uh on on Audible, and man, that was racier than I knew what to do.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tell you what.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, okay.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was that was definitely old school uh fantasy in that in that regard.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I did uh read uh Cat's Cradle um at your recommendation the other day.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: I finished that up.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that was that was weird but cool.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so then to redeem myself, I read every single book I believe that Kurvonnegut has ever written.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there we go.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that he's my favorite author of all time.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um oh, I'm also about to start uh a book of Philip K.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dick short stories.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I also Oh, he's great.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: I love Philip K.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Dick.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love that's complicated stuff right there.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm you know, a little bit of redemption there.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Good stuff.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm sorry.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, with that diversion, uh, let's just bring it back to uh where could people find you?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they can find you on this video.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but if somebody wanted to reach out and you know talk to you about uh some business valuation or family law or whatever, how could they do that?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so um I guess I mean it was send me an email.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's the easiest way.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Megan at Thompsonaccounting.net, M-E-G-A-N at Thompsonaccounting.net, or you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I am not very good at checking it, but if you find me there, uh I will give you my email at that point and you can email me uh as well.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, somebody can always reach out to me and and I'll know where to find you.
• 50:03
  unknown: Sure.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: So okay.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you very much for uh for coming on and you know just chatting with me.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.