S2:E4: PPP2, Bad Vendors, and Dealing with a Lockdown

Today Seth and Jay talk about PPP2, dealing with a second blow to business for Seth’s DC offices, and Jay has a special announcement

What's In This Episode?

  • Introducing Josh Odintz.
  • Who qualifies for PPP Round 2?
  • What are the major differences between PPP1 and 2?
  • Breaking down the fourth quarter loss comparison.
  • When to expect further guidance from Treasury.
  • Software and form support may be outdated/mismatched.
  • Does PPP 2 affect EIDL loans that have already been taken?
  • What if different divisions of a firm are impacted differently?
  • What should people hold off on paying back until the new year?

Transcript

Maximum Growth Live

Welcome to the podcast edition of Maximum Growth Live, the #1 program for lawyers who want to grow their practices. Each week, our hosts, Seth Price and Jay Ruane, tackle the fundamental questions about how to grow the profit and profitability of your law firm. To watch the program live, submit your questions, and hear the latest episode, tune in every Thursday at 3 PM Eastern on Facebook for our live show. Maximum Growth Live is a production of Maximum Lawyer Media.

Jay Ruane

Hello, hello and welcome to a special pop-up edition of Maximum Growth Live. I know we told you we weren’t going to see ya until the new year but with everything happening in the world of PPP, we wanted to bring you a special show. Maybe you could sit back, relax on this sort-time between Christmas and New Year’s and understand what’s happening in the world of PPP. Seth Price, my man over here, founder of BluShark Digital as well as Price Benowitz. And Seth, you have gotten us a phenomenal guest today. Tell us all about him.

Seth Price

Well, Josh Odintz is a friend and neighbor who geeks out as much on tax as we do on law firm growth and marketing. So you know whenever I speak to him, he’s, it’s always a million miles over my head. But we’ve asked him to drill down and try to educate our tribe here as to what does this second round of PPP mean? And just can’t wait to sort of get some clarification. I mean, the headline is that, is the tax piece and what that means for so many watching here today. And the second piece will be what is, what is possible as more money comes down the pike for those that have been hit so hard by COVID.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, I’ve got some specific questions. One thing that really piqued my interest was the employee retention tax credit that we weren’t eligible for, and it looks like we are so I want to ask him about that. So why don’t we take a quick break, and when we come back, I’ll get him out of the green room up on the screen. We’ll hear from our sponsors first and then when we come back, we’ll have this interview, we’ll talk all about PPP 2, and be able to get some information out there to our people. Sound good?

Seth Price

Sounds great.

Jay Ruane

Awesome. We’ll be right back, folks. Just give us one quick minute and we’ll be right back with Joshua with some great questions and answers about PPP 2.

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Seth Price

Josh Odintz, thank you for being here. Senior Partner, Baker McKenzie, part of the Management Committee, the man who thinks more about tax than anybody I know. We are sitting here at a time where lawyers who listen to us, you know, lived through the first PPP. It was very valuable for a lot of people, waiting to see what the second bill finally passing is. Can you tell us what is the skinny? First, what does this mean for people that received money during the first PPP round?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, so maybe I’ll provide a quick overview of what changed in the triple P because there’s some important changes. So first and foremost, the types of expenses that can qualify for loan forgiveness. So there are some new categories of expenses, and I’m going to pull it up, they include operations. So software, cloud computing, HR, anything used to track billing qualifies.

Seth Price

And Josh, assume for our purposes here, given the extended window, I think most people in this audience will be able to write, like, everything will qualify, we, this is not a group. They’re small business owners to medium sized business owners between payroll and rent. The big, you know, the big thing that everybody’s focused on right now is the deductibility of what we got. That there was a period where, until this passed, that we were concerned that you’d be paying taxes and not being able to write off the work. That, that is the sort of main focus of this audience.

Josh Odintz

Okay, so first, the good news is that, to the extent a law firm obtains loan forgiveness, that amount is not includable as income. And that’s clarified, although I thought it was clear in the original law, but apparently, Congress felt the need to, to clarify that. Second, any amount that is forgiven also does not affect thesis in a partnership. It’s considered tax-exempt. It does not have any other tax, it doesn’t reduce tax attributes, it doesn’t affect basis. It has, it also, deductions shall not be denied, because of an amount that was used from a PPP loan to pay off an amount that gave rise to a deduction. So effectively, the, the statute overrides the guidance issued by Treasury, it’s a notice that said taxpayers could not get the double benefit. So Treasury has lost that fight with Congress and so taxpayers can, for example, deduct, take a deduction for wages and at the same time, have the loan from the Triple P forgiven that was used to pay for those wages.

Seth Price

What about for, there’s a second category. A lot of our viewers may be solos or independent contractors where they got that 20k. Does this affect them differently in any way? Or is that the same basic concept?

Josh Odintz

Same concept.

Seth Price

That’s great. So a big sigh of relief. Yeah, we read it the way you did. But like, we were very concerned, many, many people out there that, there was people squirreling away money in case it didn’t break this way, that they might have a huge tax bill coming.

Josh Odintz

Yeah, so Treasury has a short fuse to issue guidance. They have 10 days to issue guidance interpreting the Triple P program. This comes at a very odd time for the government, because the last window for publishing guidance is January 15. That’s the last day the federal register will publish. So the idea that they’re going to get something done ten, in eight days, I think, is fanciful. But, you know, we could see more guidance as we go into the filing season, because there’s going to be a mismatch in the software and how the software. So if you use Quicken or if, TurboTax, or one of the other software providers, it will not contain the information contained in this law. And so there’s going to be a mismatch for, for a period of time. The software providers will want guidance and how to fix it, then interpretations on how it’s going to flow through on a form. So I expect Treasury to issue that guidance as soon as possible, but I doubt it’s going to be out in in eight days.

Seth Price

But there’s no way that Treasury could do any, take any steps that would negate what Congress just pushed through with the President saying… that is correct.

Josh Odintz

That is correct.

Seth Price

Awesome. So then the next thing as people have a big sigh of relief and realize they’ve been hopefully squirreling away money that’s not needed now for, for taxes, is who and what is eligible for round, what I’m calling Round 2 I guess some people call it Round 3, but for this round of Triple P?

Josh Odintz

Yep. So the requirements have changed a bit. First is the size of the employer. It’s limited to 300 employees, which is different from from the prior round, which was 500. Aggregation rules still apply for law firms, so to the extent you have multiple locations but exceed 300, it’s all aggregated into one employer. So it’s 300 employees, the cap of the loan is 2 million. So decrease from 10 to 2. In order to qualify a, a business has to show that it had a 25%, at least a 25% decrease in profits, or sorry, in revenues, from fourth quarter, between fourth quarter of 2019 and fourth quarter of 2020. There are rules for firms that if they weren’t in existence, let’s say you had a merger brand new firm is created, there are different testing dates depending on when the firm was created. But basically, you’re comparing fourth quarters from 2019 and 2020. So if your revenues have decreased by greater than 25%, then you can qualify.

Jay Ruane

So I have a question about that.

Seth Price

It’s only fourth quarter, there’s no other quarters that they’re looking at. It’s 1/4, you know, fourth quarter of, of ’19 versus ’20. You don’t have an option like the other one where you could look at two different date sets?

Josh Odintz

That’s, that’s correct. Although I suspect treasury. So there’s, so this is, the amount of Triple P issued is 806.5 billion in loan authorization. That’s a huge amount. And while I think they’re trying to spread it as thinly, as widely as possible, I suspect Treasury could create different testing periods to measure the reduction. So it might be, you might test the second quarter, the third quarter of 2020, which may be a better comparable, because like for retail, for example, you know, may not be what’s hard is the seasonal.

Seth Price

Right? They got their Christmas bump, and that’s not as bad, but they died for those middle days, those middle months.

Jay Ruane

Well, the other thing, too, that I think people may have to consider is, is different parts of the country had spikes at different times. And so that’s something that I think needs to be taken into consideration and that might be something that we, we see down the line, right? I mean, it would make sense. I mean, Connecticut, for us, you know, going into the fourth quarter we were in a dip. I mean, there was a lot of people out doing a lot of things that we move, spiked back up. But that’s certainly something that I think people might need to take into consideration of when, when you’re, you know, reemergence or your spike happened and how that impacted business.

Josh Odintz

Yeah, so as a former Treasury official, I was at Treasury during the Obama administration, I’ll just say that getting to that decision of which quarter to test and how to, how to read the statute will take some time. I would not expect that out in the first round of guidance. I could see the next administration in trying to distribute more trip, more Triple P funding, will take a much more creative or broad interpretation of the statute.

Jay Ruane

But if it’s, is it safe to say, if, if your fourth quarter had, had a 26 or more percent dip from your fourth quarter in 2019, you qualify as it’s written today?

Josh Odintz

Yes.

Seth Price

And then what will, what are you eligible for?

Josh Oditnz

So, once again, you’re eligible for up to $2 million of additional loan.

Seth Price

Understood, but is it the same as last time where it’s on, on a cost per employee basis up to $100,000? Or what’s, what’s the?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, it’s two, it’s two and a half times employee. Yes, that’s correct.

Seth Price

Same basic for drill as before, two and a half times up to $100,000 maximum annual salary. Is there a similar guidance as far as they, they’ve spent so much time, what percentage on rent versus it seemed that all of that went out the window given the elongated period you had to use it during?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, it’s a 24, 24-week period. So that’s baked in now as opposed to…

Seth Price

Yeah. Is there anything markedly different about this round other than the period and the decrease requirements?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, so the costs that do qualify in building up what, your costs, include some very interesting, I mean, depending on as you think about getting the next round. So for example, you can use it for, let’s say, property damage. You have an office in DC that was destroyed by civil unrest, and insurance didn’t cover it. You can use funds from the Triple P, up to 40% of your Triple P slug can be used, you can use as much as you want for property damage. But if you want the loan forgiven, then still 60% has to qualify for payroll. Supplier costs, so to the extent you’re, you know, you have a contract for legal service software, for example, like Lexus, you can now use that for supplier costs. Also PPE qualifies, everything from physical barriers and the statute refers to sneeze guards, air pressure, air and pressure ventilation filtration systems. If you want to build in a drive-thru window into your firm that qualifies now, as a qualifying expense. Health screening service facilities and anything else that OSHA and DHS, HHS, sorry, HHS and labor prescribe.

Seth Price

Right. I guess for our world, that’s, that’s not as exciting in that salaries generally will, will eat that up very quickly over 24 weeks. Is there anything… So the piece that I think that most people who are going to be focused on is, you know, December to December versus others. Can you walk us through, like, what, what you foresee being that process? Meaning, is it something that if right now, let’s say your December to December is less than 25% of a decrease, it’s somewhere between zero and 25? Or, or even, you know, do you think that they’ll, what would the timeframe be before we have an idea as to whether or not… because for many of us, it was the second and third quarter that were particularly horrifically hit?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, so Treasury. It’s interesting, the Triple P loan guidance, Treasury has taken the lead on issuing that guidance, even though it’s a small business administration program. So SBA just issued guidance, but not at the same volume as Treasury. Treasury, people are disappearing, and they are overwhelmed with trying to get through tax guidance. And while we’re not going to get into much of the details of the, of the bill that was passed, there are significant tax provisions that are going to impact filing season. There were extensions of many provisions that expired and more important modifications to those provisions, which creates a lot of complexity going into filing season, which starts, I mean, effectively started, even though it’ll technically kick off in a few weeks. So I think that Treasury is, is going to be in a difficult bind. It will be up to the transition team that is currently working on, working on the filing season, making sure there’s a smooth transition, it will be up to them to make this a priority. So it’s really, and it also depends on how many people can get into the building, you know, will Janet Yellen be confirmed on day one? Will they have folks in the front office who are familiar with the program, and who can, you know, and who are receptive to interpretation that you can compare different quarters? Because that’s how your business cycle works.

Seth Price

Jay?

Jay Ruane

I had a question for you. I noticed in some of the media about the PPP, Triple P Number 2, is that it makes employers eligible for the employee retention tax credit that we were not eligible for if we took PPP 1. Can you tell me a little bit about what that is and how that would impact a solo or a small firm that has struggled and kept on its employees through this strenuous period?

Josh Odintz

Yep. So let me focus on two different interactions. The first is, and I think I saw it the most in this case of mergers. So let’s say your two law firms that wanted to merge, one had a Triple P loan and had used it, the other had the employee retention credit and had claimed it. You can’t have both, and so the question is, what do you do? And the IRS was unwilling to rule in the space, there were a lot of mergers that just didn’t come together or had to get creative on repayment. So the way that it works now, one is the CRTC has been plussed up to $10,000 of wages per quarter as opposed to $10,000 in wages per year. The credit is more generous, so it’s 70% of qualified wages, $7,000 versus $5,000 per employee. And then once again, it’s by the quarter. And so, so under the new law, a taxpayer can claim the ERTC for wages that are not paid for with forgiven Triple P loans. So if you have a Triple P loan, but it’s not forgiven, you can still, you can claim the ERTC. For the amount of wages that are forgiven, under that, or premium, that are part of a Triple P loan, those cannot qualify for the employee retention credit. So it’s still better than, than the prior because now you can claim both, and two firms can, can merge. Also, it’s clarified that group health plan expenses qualify. So that does help with providing a greater base for what can qualify for the employee retention credit.

Jay Ruane

Excellent.

Seth Price

Jay, you had one other question from before?

Jay Ruane

Yeah, the question I had was really about the Triple P and EIDL. It’s, and I could be wrong on this, but when I got the loan application and all that stuff, it talked about how your Triple P would be reduced by any EIDL that you had gotten. And I have received my PPP, that is long spent. I got my EIDL and I sort of squirrelled it away for you know, this is my last, this is my, this is my, you know, trying to save the ship when we got nothing else. And I’m wondering if, because I had that EIDL, if that’s going to negatively impact what I can get from the Triple P Round 2. Because I have been dispersing that money and, and EIDL is a loan, it’s not going to get forgiven. But Triple P would, you know. Am I in a position where I need to seek about getting back this EIDL to qualify for Triple P Round 2? You know, I just, I’m nervous about that. Because I don’t want to give that money that I might need to stay alive, and I don’t want to spend money that I don’t necessarily have to spend.

Josh Odintz

Yep, so the good part, Jay, is that the, the, the interaction of the EIDL and Triple P has been eliminated. So you don’t have to reduce your Triple P amount by the amount of EIDL advance. So, and so that will not impact your forgiveness amount. So you’re, you’re golden.

Seth Price

But the EIDL still has to be repaid, it’s not forgiven.

Josh Odintz

So there is a, there is a sense of the Senate, a sense of Congress, that it should not be, it shouldn’t have to be repaid, and it should be treated as, like a Triple P loan. But that’s not included in the final legislation. So it’s possible that when they come around to the next round of COVID relief, which there will be another round at some point in 2021, it’s possible they address this issue head on.

Seth Price

So we will feel more foolish if we repay the EIDL early?

Josh Odintz

I, you know, it’s, look, it’s hard. And, but it definitely is, it’s definitely, you know, I probably would not repay, I would hold off and see what Congress does, very much like, thank, thank goodness Congress addressed the deductibility issue, cuz I know that’s a massive issue.

Seth Price

That’s, that’s, that, that was, that’s going to be, for our audience, that’s the biggest swing. And I hope that, not, you know, based on December to December, that not as many people will be by round two. But at the same time, it’s there for those that, that desperately need it.

Josh Odintz

Yep. So also, you know, Jay, going back to the point, if you left some Triple P on the table, or your Triple P was reduced because of EIDL, or you gave some of it back, let’s say because you are concerned based on the inconsistent guidance from Treasury, then there’s going to be a process… Treasury has to announce within 17 days of enactment a process for obtaining the differential, so you can go back and claim more of your Triple P loan if you left some on the table. So that’s supposed to be a fast track process, we’ll see how that is outlined. So you may not have to actually reapply, you may just be able to ask, but it will, that will depend on guidance.

Seth Price

What I, my final question on EIDL is if you, if somebody did repay it, can they get, can they somehow get it back?

Josh Odintz

So I am not an EI, I’m not an SBA expert. It doesn’t, there’s nothing that clarifies that in the, in the new bill. So I’d have to look back at sections.

Seth Price

And right now it’s moot, because right now it is for, unless something changes, it needs to be repaid.

Josh Odintz

Yes.

Seth Price

Gotcha. Awesome. Jay, you got anything final?

Jay Ruane

No, I think this really sort of encapsulates everything. I think, you know, over the next 6 to 12 weeks, it sounds like we’re going to be getting a lot more guidance, and, you know, that’s really going to be something that people have to pay attention to. It’s not something where it stays frozen in time, is that fair to say? That it’s, this thing is definitely a moving ball, and as things crop up, they will address those things in future, future guidance or future legislation.

Josh Odintz

Yeah, I think, well, legislation is going to be hard. You know, until, unless and until Congress reaches compromise on the next round of COVID, really. What I would expect to see: One, guidance implementing any changes in the Triple P, and that we’ll see, hopefully, before this administration leaves tax, I expect tax will take a little longer because of the, you know, hundreds of pages of tax provisions contained in this bill. And, and so I expect we’ll see some guidance, you know, for the filing season as soon as possible. But probably, it might, it might be until February, before we see changes to forms and whatnot. So there will be a mismatch or incorrect guidance in the tax forms addressing deductions, employee retention credit. Actually ERTC is likely to be fixed quickly, because it’s a, it’s a quarter by quarter basis, it’s, it’s gonna be determined on a quarter by quarter basis, it’s relatively, relatively easy, and it’s, it’s so and it rolls up with employment taxes, whereas the filing requirements may be a little more challenging. So I would, you know, talk to your tax provider, or I wouldn’t trust the software unless you see some update that it says it takes into account changes to, pursuant to the act.

Jay Ruane

I have one final question, if you, if you don’t mind. You know, we talked about this 25% year over year 19 to 20. How am I going to have to document that? Or in your experience, or you know, by your best guess, because I’m not going to hold you to anything. You think I’m gonna have to like sign an affidavit, do I, am I gonna have to provide a p&l to to my banker, and, and have that attached to my application? You know, because I’m just curious if I can start assembling I, my paperwork now, to be ready to go forward. I mean, I know if I look in my QuickBooks, and I run year over year, it’s going to show, you know, pretty easily that I lost more than 25% in the fourth quarter. I mean, I know that just by knowing my numbers, but what am I going to have to do to prove that in order to qualify? Do you think?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, and, look, this is a, you know, this is where it’s more of a banker’s question, what would a bank do in order to establish you know, what type of substantiation they’re going to require. And so I think looking at your, you know, your books, and putting together the p&l will, will probably be sufficient.

Seth Price

And that led me to my final question, which is, what about divisions? You talked about law firms merging. If a division within a firm took a big hit, and another didn’t, is there any, is there anything that would allow you, or it’s just the overall entity? It’s done at the entity level?

Josh Odintz

Yeah, it’s kind of the, it’s defined as employer which is, it’s, it’s the, I don’t want to say entity, it could be several entities, but if they’re all related, and then…

Seth Price

Whatever that group is together.

Josh Odintz

That whole group. So yeah.

Seth Price

Well, look, this has been very illuminating. I think back to when the first round happened at the beginning of COVID, we were, you know, it was all over the place. You felt very helpless, you didn’t really understand what’s going on. To have this clear, concise understanding, some nuance of what, what to expect next is much appreciated, Josh, and please keep us informed as, as things roll out over time.

Jay Ruane

Yes. Thank you so much.

Josh Odintz

Jay, Seth, thanks very much for having me.

Jay Ruane

Excellent.

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Jay Ruane

Man, Seth, I gotta tell you, walking into the last couple of days of the year, I am buoyant. I feel a lot better after having that conversation, getting some answers to those questions that I think will make a difference to the viability of my firm going forward. And just, you know, talk about being an up, we talked about the roller coaster over the course of the year, I’m ending on a high note. Because I think you know, this next round of PPP is going to help me. What are your thoughts?

Seth Price

Well, first, I think the headline here, I hope that those that need it can get a second round. But I think that for somebody who’s looking at the tax implications, as Josh mentioned, the original idea was we wouldn’t, there wouldn’t be deductible. When people realize what they would have owed, I think that that, you know, the proverbial shit would have hit the fan. So the fact that that is clarified, that we had escrowed monies, tremendous amounts of money that had to be saved, to, to pay, to pay taxes on that, to me is the biggest headline. If not another penny comes, so be it. But yeah, to sort of getting some clarification. And it sounds like, as we saw last time, work in progress. You know, a lot of people went and spent in the 8 or 12 weeks everything in order to get things done and didn’t necessarily spend it wisely. So A), that’s why the tax, you know, people spent money from the first round in ways they might not have given that it elongated the weeks to spend it. So I’m very thankful that it is, it is now not a taxable event, or that you can deduct that money. But I think that the exciting part for us to watch is to see what is eligible for Round 2. For, you know, it sounds like for you, you’re going to be able to show a 25% decrease.

Jay Ruane

A lot more than that.

Seth Price

For many of us, right, the fourth quarter is not our issue. Right? So for many of us, we figured out how to retool, and that the fourth quarter may be less than 25%, or even, or even a slight gain, but that there are those middle quarters that were devastating. So if somebody went hypothetically, fourth quarter of last year to second quarter of this year, something like that, those permutations were very different. It’ll be interesting to see because with everything they do, you saw this in the first round, everything you do has an unintended consequence. And so here, you talk about retail, some of those guys got a bump with Christmas, people finally started spending again, maybe, but there were some deadly deadly months in the middle, and how will this play out? We both know that there’s always going to be somebody raising their hand saying, “Hey, can you push in this direction?” And we’ll be certainly checking back with Josh to see, does that definition of what, what timeframes you’re looking at get changed over time.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting to me, we talked a little bit about, about how different sections of the country felt different things. But, you know, one of the things that I’m, I’m learning is from some of our listeners and viewers who are in the PI field, normally their fourth quarter is one of their biggest quarters. And this year, they didn’t have that same pressure to be able to settle things. And so I think a lot more people had down fourth quarters, even if they retrenched and did things in the legal space than, than others. So I feel bad for you though, because it’s an entity thing, so if you had some growth in some areas, you know, a place like Price Benowitz that has a lot of different areas, you may not necessarily be able to show the decline in that fourth quarter…

Seth Price

You know what, so, so be it, right? We got money when we needed it. We know that allowed us to keep stability and growth and if we don’t, then it did its job right. If PPP got us to the point where we don’t have, we can’t show that, you know, again, money is nice, but like the whole point is you want to see it allocated where it is needed. And look, when I look at the stuff in our home community, the fine dining and hospitality and just seeing the hit that they have taken, that, that is just you know, devastating. And the idea is they’re not going to say hey, it’s only for that, they want to be able to cover things but you’re gonna see it very random. PI, specifically, one big case makes somebody’s quarter. So if a big case cleared, great, and if it didn’t… and that’s why it’ll be interesting, you know, John Fisher has been very vocal about being with bigger cases, less number of bigger cases, being very concerned about lack of jury trials, You know what you’re gonna see is, if something settled, you have it, you’ll have a solid fourth quarter, if it didn’t, if they kick the can, which a lot of people are doing, then you’ll be eligible. And so I, you know, we both know that realistically, this will be broadened as people sort of raise their hand and say, hey, why not me in some in some constituency, we’ll get that. So, you know..

Jay Ruane

Yeah. And, you know, I’m not a tax professional here. And I certainly, you know, but it would, it would sound to me, like, if you are sitting on a big settlement, that you are waiting to disperse, maybe you don’t disperse it until January 2, so your fourth quarter doesn’t have as big of a bump as it would have. And I know some people, you know, they want to get that money out of their trust account into their operating accounts, so they can pay off some things. And I mean, we’re only two days away from the end of the quarter, but, you know, if it’s still sitting there, and you were thinking about taking the money, and putting it into your operating and you’re at that, you know, 24 to 26% drop period, maybe it’s better to not have that income during this period, because that, that might impact your ability to qualify.

Seth Price

And look, I’ve always looked at it like, yes, you can handicap it, but we have no idea which way this thing is going. We have a pretty good idea. Look, there’s so much more certainty today, we just did a half hour interview, and I feel like we have a solid understanding of where we stand, we did weeks of talks on this. Every week, it was different, it was back and forth, they’ll still be back and forth. But this is, we’ve been through the game, we understand what is generally allowed with the, you know, for the two and a half times, we got that down, that only took us, you know, eight weeks on the front end. So I think that the, you know, you’re sort of identifying where people are to be thinking is, how do you, how do you look at your fourth quarter and are there things that ethically, or that you do have a decision as to when to, to, to have a contract signed, are you gonna sign something? And now it’s based on income, not on expenses, so you have a little bit less control for most people. But certainly, it’ll be an, an exciting run, not as exciting as the last one. But thankfully not. Last time, there was so much more uncertainty in the world, we have greater certainty. And I truly hope that if you’re, you know, you’ve, you’ve been the king of of criminal and DUI in a state, you’re going to take the biggest hit in this process. And as you know, we talked a lot along the way about what would be up and what would be down this year. And one of the funny things I saw is, you know, we saw like things like trust and estates and immigration still have great velocity, but the money isn’t always there. So while I don’t see, I don’t see a 25% drop for most people in those areas, I do see, like, lack of growth. So the fact that there’s that 25% touch point, while I think is great for the people who are most hardest hit, you’re gonna see a lot of people that struggled through this year didn’t have any meaningful growth, maybe a little bit of a dip, but possibly not enough to show 25%.

Jay Ruane

And if you’re one of those people who, you know, didn’t necessarily have the 25% dip, but you’re, you struggled with some growth, we have a treat for you. Coming up two days from now, on New Year’s Eve, we normally have a live show, but what we’re doing this year is we’re giving you the best stuff. So on Thursday at 3pm, you’re going to be able to see our Hack Show, which gives you all of our 10 growth hacks for 2021, as well as our Software Show where we roll down and go through a number of different software things that I know, you can benefit from. Seth, I know you’ve started using one of the softwares, I see your little cat GIF every day in my feed when you’re wishing somebody happy birthday. And there’s some great tips and tricks that you can get out of both these episodes, and we’re also going to tack on to that our Gerber interview where we talk a little bit about E-Mything your law firm. So Thursday, it’s not going to be a live show, but it is going to be shows that are sort of mashed up together so that you can get the best out of it in preparation for the next year. So if you’re sitting around on Thursday, make sure you tune into our shows and catch those replays.

Seth Price

You know, we wanted to, in 2021, to talk to a number of coaches and we’ve had two on already, they were going to possibly run today. One was maybe New Year’s Day, we give people the opportunity to hear back from, from, from Kristin and others just so that we can get sort of a running start for, for 2021. Because I feel like one of the things I’d love to bring value to our, to our viewers and listeners is who is out there to help you, you know, personally move that, you know, and that to see, to see some of the guys we’ve had on, or girls we’ve had on, as, as coaches. Let’s sort of start that with a running start.

Jay Ruane

I love that. I love that idea. So, focus on January is going to be coaches, and maybe some of their coaching clients and talk about how they were able to help them move the needle. I think that’s a great place to take Max Growth Live in 2021, and of course, we’ll be with you all year as we help you grow your firm. Seth, any final, final thoughts for the year?

Seth Price

No, it’s been an incredible ride, I’m glad to have had you there as a, as a co-pilot, and to be able to walk through this together, you know, from the early days of, you know, is the world ending as we know it to, okay, this is the new normal, you know. Pleasure and privilege to be able to, you know, to talk to everybody and get their feedback on what I’ve really enjoyed doing. And I feel like, you know, the things I’ve taken away from my own firm and company have been tremendous, I feel like I’ve gotten just as much as I’ve given here.

Jay Ruane

Yeah, you know, for me, I, if you were to ask me, “How was 2007 for your firm? How was 2014?” You know, I have a general sense of what it was, but I don’t think I’m ever going to forget 2020, and I take that as sort of a badge of honor. That I have persevered, I have made it through with your help, with the help of our audience. And I thank you for that. It’s definitely been an exciting year as an entrepreneur and as a law firm owner. There’s a lot of cool stuff out there. I was able to make some great additions to my, to my team, make some great systems in our office because you know, I love systems. In fact, I was building one earlier today and documenting it all you know, this is just old habits die hard. But with that, I think we’re gonna leave you. He is Seth Price. He is in Del Boca Vista. He is enjoying the sun before the New Year. I’m here in cold Connecticut, I am Jay Ruane and we are Maximum Growth Live. Thank you so much for being with us. Happy New Year, folks. Be on the lookout for our best of shows that are coming up over the next couple of days, and we’ll see you again next time on another edition of Maximum Growth Live. Bye for now.

Maximum Growth Live

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