From Data to Dollars: Profit Strategy for Entrepreneurs | Leslie Taylor - Part 1

Welcome to Spark & Ignite Your Marketing, the podcast where real conversations meet real strategies. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy godmother of brand clarity at Wickedly Branded. With over 25 years of experience, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic, attract the right people, and build businesses that light them up.

What if your financial numbers could tell the story of your business’s future—and rewrite it for the better? In this episode, I sit down with profitability strategist Leslie Taylor to unpack how entrepreneurs can stop ignoring the numbers, ditch financial fear, and finally step into empowered, data-driven decisions. From Leslie’s inspiring pivot from food scientist to founder to her honest take on business seasons, this conversation is filled with financial clarity, mindset reframes, and real-life stories of resilience and revenue. 

Three Key  Marketing Topics Discussed:

1. Using Financial Data to Guide Strategy: Leslie explains how understanding your numbers isn't just about taxes; it helps entrepreneurs make more confident, strategic decisions. Learn about how we can help you with your Marketing Strategy!
2. Reframing the Shame Around Money and Visibility: She shares how money mindset and fear of judgment (especially transitioning from corporate to entrepreneurship) can hold back visibility and brand confidence. 
3. Positioning for Profit and Clarity: Leslie talks about how her business stands out by offering forward-looking, insight-driven financial support, positioning her firm differently from traditional bookkeeping or tax services.

Follow Leslie:
Leslie Taylor | LinkedIn
Leslie Taylor | Instagram
Leslie Taylor | Website

Transcript

Beverly: 0:09

Did you know that 82% of small businesses fail due to cash flow issues? And many of them have no idea until it's way too late. Financial blind spots can cost business owners their dreams. But they don't have to. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell, founder and fairy

0:25

godmother of brand clarity at wickedly branded. With

Beverly: 0:28

over 25 years of helping hundreds of purpose-driven entrepreneurs awaken their brand magic and boldly bring it to life so that they can magnify their impact in the world. And today, we are pulling back the curtain on financial storytelling, entrepreneurial resilience and profitability with Leslie Taylor, the powerhouse behind Leslie Taylor and Associates business solutions from chemical engineer and food scientist to chief profitability strategist Leslie helps entrepreneurs understand what their numbers are really telling them and how to use those insights to grow. Her story is one of courage and clarity and purpose, and I cannot wait to share it with you. Leslie, welcome to the Spark Ignite Your Marketing podcast.

Leslie: 1:09

Thank you. Thank you so much, Beverly, and thank you for that fabulous introduction. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have this conversation.

Beverly: 1:18

Yes I'm excited to spend some time with you, learning more about you. So let's go back to the chemical engineer thing. How do you go from chemical engineer to profitability strategist

Leslie: 1:26

I'm glad you asked because these are all things that I'm very passionate about. So how did all this happen? It's a question I get often. It really all started first with high school. In high school I felt this really strong calling to entrepreneurship. My immediate family, there were no entrepreneurs, and so I was focused on what I knew, math and science. So math, science, where can I make good money engineering. That led me to chemical engineering. And while I enjoyed chemical engineering, I decided to go back to school and get a degree in food science. And so for me, putting together science with food and cooking, which I love to do, I come from a cooking family, my grandmother, my mother that was something that just brought everything together. And then I wanna say a little thing. When I say science, it doesn't mean we're putting necessarily weird things in the food. It just means everything we do is science. So I got a degree in food science and then I minored in business with a focus on entrepreneurship. And so I spent close to two decades in corporate America as a product developer and a technical leader. I developed new products, I led technical teams. I worked on multimillion dollar brands. And one of the things that I was most excited about, honestly, I'm a data nerd. So using data to help those companies make profitable decisions, like I love statistics, I love the numbers. So that was where all of this fits into what I do today. So that was great. I was comfortable making great money, but this calling to start my own business was always there. It was just always there. And later on, life would bring more clarity. I got married, I had a son. And I started to see this conflict between the path I was on and the life that I wanted. I could look into the future and I could see that I needed more flexibility. I am a sandwich generation woman, so my parents are in their eighties, we have a son, he's 13. We're both working in corporate, my husband and I. And I just could see that I'm gonna need more flexibility. This isn't gonna work for the type of mom I wanna be, the type of wife I wanna be, the type of daughter I wanna be. I could see that. And then there was this entrepreneur thing. So quite honestly, the reason why I made the jump, I believe, was because God was tired of me repeatedly saying, okay, this is gonna be my last corporate job. Okay no. This is gonna be my last corporate job. I kept saying that over and over, and I think he just got tired. So in 2017, I was in a corporate job that was the most challenging of my work experience ever. Not in a good way. And it took me further away from my why, which was my family. I had less time for them. That was when I knew okay, I'm gonna have to take this step out on faith and do something different. And as I began that journey and started researching, I took a class in financial accounting. The one class that I missed when I did my minor in in entrepreneurship. And I loved it. And I was like, this is awesome. Numbers tell a story. And, I'd already done that work in corporate and I just realized that I could use my data nerdiness to help entrepreneurs who often struggle with the financial side of their businesses, right? Everybody starts a business and they wanna be profitable and they wanna have a successful business and they wanna have enough money to do the things that they want to do, but so many entrepreneurs are blind when it comes to this part of their business. So that's how Leslie Taylor and Associates was born. And our focus is heavy on helping our clients, understand the stories their numbers are telling.

Beverly: 4:52

There's so many things that you've said that I really wanna go a little deeper on. First, the cooking science. I love to cook. I grow my own food. There is always a chemical reaction that's happening. There's all kinds of science that happened and there's data in that too. I love this idea of the scientist, and I love the idea of data and the researcher. I worked in advertising, worked in corporate, I worked for Chrysler, and I was at the Chrysler headquarters in Hills, Michigan. And I was in charge of a billion dollar events budget. Like more zeros than I'd ever seen in my life. And I was like 24 years old. I remember going home and having nightmares about decimal being in the wrong place. Somehow I would put it in the wrong place and someone would get way too much money, it'd be all my fault. I was an advertising girl, like, why are you giving me this financial responsibility? At 24? And as a creative person, I am a branding and digital marketing agency. I love all that side, but, I'm gonna be real honest with you. I probably didn't really care about my finances, like looking closely unless I made payroll, which my only thing was look, what did I owe me? I don't look at anything for probably the first five, six years. And it wasn't until I got real clear on my numbers, like how many of my connection calls I had to make to get to my first level of service. What are my numbers? What can I project? What does this look like for me? Like even for growth for people on my team. Until I got really clear on that and that wasn't because of me, that was because I outsourced it to someone else who was way better at it than I could ever be. That was the first investment I made because those numbers are so important for you to keep going and to know how to grow in the next best steps. We tell stories all day long. Marketing, we do that all day long. So the fact that you take data and make a story, I love the story that. Data tells me, but I don't like all the data part. We're in this process right now of putting together a growth flywheel, which is like our entire customer journey. And then we have numbers related to every step of the journey. And we can easily know who's accountable for those particular steps and whether it's we have benchmarks and we have minimums and all kinds of things. When we do that we then can look at real easily where we need to put our goals and our attention to based on those. So the numbers now are like so ingrained in the story that you probably can't imagine not having those. Exactly. So tell me how, what is your approach, what is the thing that makes your firm a little different than a traditional accounting firm that is really all about clients uncovering their numbers and uncovering the story?

Leslie: 7:20

Our approach is to really spend a lot of time understanding the business itself. So if I take a step back and I just look at the industry as a whole for small businesses in terms of what's available in the financial space, you find there are services that will help you organize your numbers. And organization is great, right? We all need to be organized. We don't wanna be a mess. There are services that help you with tax filing and tax planning, and that's all important. But where we sit is the space where we are spending more time. We're very high touch, right? I'm meeting with clients. We're meeting with clients either monthly or quarterly. So we're high touch with our clients. That allows us to get an opportunity to understand their businesses and then best advise them so we understand their business. So it starts in my business with what I call a profitability assessment. Before we work with any clients, we have to do an assessment. That assessment isn't just going into their QuickBooks and looking at what's in there or looking at their bank statements. It's understanding their business. It's understanding how do they get paid. Do you have employees? How many, how are you paying them? Because, some people are just paying folks by Zelle, then we need to work on that. But also how, what's their vision for the business? Like why are you in business? Where are you trying to go? Because then it also informs how I make recommendations, right? I'm gonna make a customized recommendation for you based on all these things because you're different than the next client, than the next client. So we actually take the time to get to understand the business and then we can make the best recommendations as far as how they move forward. I think that's what really sets us apart, is taking the time to do that, spending the time doing that. I would say that's one of the biggest differentiators for us.

Beverly: 9:05

I know a lot of business owners, myself included, I'm gonna raise my hand here, are a little embarrassed about their numbers. And I've just been trying to figure it out as I go along. I was never wanted to be an entrepreneur like you. I actually went in kicking and screaming. Totally accidental. I married an active duty army guy and I had to take my show on the road. That's really what it came down to. So I had to figure it out, but I knew how much work it was gonna be.'cause I worked for a tech startup just before I married my husband, so I had helped grow a company from, under a million to 10 million. And I knew how hard that was and I was like, I don't know if I wanna do this for myself. But clearly I did. I just had to figure out some things. But I remember just being really embarrassed that I didn't know what I didn't know. Yes. And yes, so many people feel like they shouldn't go to someone because they feel like they're embarrassed.

Leslie: 9:52

You're absolutely right. I wanna highlight what you just said because it's extremely common. Men and women. But I would say maybe a little more so for women, and some of that is traditionally women are not steered towards STEM careers. So when we talk about math and science and numbers and things like that, through school we're programmed this is not for you. This is not your thing. You're not really good at this. So when you have those messages all those years and then you become an adult and then you're dealing with financials and numbers. it's these messages have told you're not good at it or you shouldn't be doing it. And that's one part that especially affects women. I just have to say this'cause this is something that I like to share a lot and it's eyeopening for a lot of people. It's okay that you don't understand this stuff because there's a lot of shame around I'm an entrepreneur, right? I'm smart, right? Maybe you went to school, maybe you didn't, but I'm really smart and I should understand this. So I'm embarrassed that I don't, no, you shouldn't understand it. There's no reason why you should understand it. Unless you went to school for accounting there's no reason for you to understand it. There's absolutely no reason. So don't feel like you should understand it because you shouldn't.

Beverly: 11:00

I think I felt extra pressure because I had done all this budgeting and stuff for Chrysler. Why couldn't I do it for myself? And I think a lot of that has to do with working in many zeros versus, a couple of zeros. It's a whole different mindset and it really wasn't my money. So it was easier to sit within that very right, left constrained thing versus this idea that it was so many possibilities, so many things to think about. And I think the other thing that was at play for me, I don't know if it is for other people. Was this idea that I was doing everything else, the accounting was like the last thing I wanted to do. So then it doesn't get done right. So I had this big box of just receipts or whatever, and it was like. The bane of my existence come January one. Yep.

Leslie: 11:44

and it's not your wheelhouse. Absolutely not. And it's uncomfortable and it's not fun. And you've waited maybe to the last minute and it's built up like this is, I mean it's super common, which is why generally in this industry the end of the year to the first quarter tends to be the busiest. Yeah. Because as tax season rolls around. It becomes a bigger stressor and more focused priority for entrepreneurs. So yeah that's why we usually have a surge in new clients because of that. That is normal.

Beverly: 12:18

In January, I would say I'm gonna do this every single week. I'm not gonna get behind in every single, like September or October. I'm like, oh crap, what have I done to myself? It was like this sado masochist circle that I kept doing to myself. So if I could say one thing, and I have not worked with Leslie specifically, but now is the time to get your poop in a group, so that when the end of the year comes you are not in my position where I was stressed out and crazy and right. Is there any other fears you think people have related to finances?

Leslie: 12:49

As I've worked with clients, I've found that there is, how shall I say, a false freedom in not looking at your numbers, right? Because you're just spending. You're just not looking at the truth. And so you're just spending. Just this false freedom that it's I don't know what it's doing, so I'm just gonna spend, and I'm just gonna pray and hope that it all works out. And, sometimes it doesn't. And that only works for so long until you run outta money. But but I would say that's another one are people are afraid to look at their numbers because they're afraid maybe I'm not as profitable, maybe I'm not profitable at all. Like they're afraid of what they might see. And that's where we have the conversation and I say once we look at it, we'll see the truth and then we can create a plan. If it's not what you wanna see, then we can create a plan and you'll feel empowered to take it and fix it to where you want it to be. But only until we do that can we, move forward.

Beverly: 13:35

The reason why I think I took control of my particular finances in this space, I don't know, like six, seven years ago, was because I wanted to grow and I wanted to scale. And when you have goals to grow and scale, you need capital. There's just no other way around. You can't pay. your people out of nothing. you have to have credit., I got serious about what I wanted to see for my business, and that was the empowering part, I had a vision and you talked about that. You wanna see where the company wants to go.. I had a clear vision and by working with somebody in this space, I was able to then take the next best steps financially. To get me to the growth that I wanted. So talk about a client story or someone who, you've helped get from like where I was that money mindset piece to full control, empowerment and growth beyond maybe what they even thought for themselves.

Leslie: 14:24

I would say one of my best examples a client that I've been working with for maybe just before the pandemic and this client is an example of a lot of clients that we work with who start off as solopreneurs, right? You start a business doing a thing that you maybe did in your career, right? So when we started working with him, he was still working full-time in a job, and then also part-time on the side. And he said I want to grow this and hire people, like I want to scale this and make it bigger ultimately. So we started working with him initially just on basic things like commingling, right? Don't commingle your business and personal things together. We need to keep them separate. So that we can really see what's going on. And so legally you're, not in any, potential liabilities, right? In case anyone should sue you, heaven forbid. But, so that we can track how things are doing. And what we did with him was help him clean up, the commingled finances. Help him understand when he could hire people financially. Because a lot of folks wanna hire someone and they just hire and hope and pray, but that doesn't always work out. We wanna make sure that when we hire people, that we can continue to keep them on and that we understand how much we need to bring in revenue to continue to keep them on and all that kind of good stuff. And then to be competitive. We helped him through the pandemic because if you recall during the pandemic, hiring became a challenge, right? Bringing people on. He had to be competitive. I operate in my area, my zone of genius, and I recognize that business owners, they obviously have other needs. So in his case, he was hiring multiple employees. We connected him with a fractional HR person. So that he could stay compliant, stay on top of the laws. But also, when you've got, 20, 30 employees, which is where he is now, 30 plus. You need some outside expertise in that area to make sure you're compliant and covered and doing all the things you need to be doing. But we've also worked with him on pricing. I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a minute on the pricing piece. Because I've seen business coaches and different folks say things like, just double your prices or price what you're worth. And there's a lot that goes into understanding pricing, understanding your market, understanding your target client and customer. That all determines that. But then also understanding your own numbers to make sure that you can cover your expenses. And so we've worked with him to give him some prompts and say, Hey, there's nothing else we can reduce in terms of expenses. You're good. We need to look at pricing now. We need to look at how you're pricing. We need to look at how you're getting paid in your business at cashflow. Yeah. So helping him with things like cashflow forecasting. And right now to the point that you're speaking this client is looking for some additional funding and making sure that our clients have the proper reports that they need so that they can get good terms. When they go for those loans or funding or whatever, that's another thing that we help to do as well as be another set of eyes. Sure my clients can go in there and they can probably figure out how to print some of these reports, but the benefit of having us download those reports and send them is you've got another set of financial eyes on that report before you send it to the bank. Case in point. Just this week that was done for a client and as I was looking at the report, I said, you know what, we're not quite done with closing June. If you wait an extra day, that report's gonna look better. Than if we just use this other report. Now, had they gone in and downloaded themselves, they probably would've just downloaded and sent it off. But having another set of eyes, someone else on your team looking out for your business to say, Hey, you know what, if we wait a day, we'll get this done for you. We'll send this one, and more than likely it will put you in a more positive light in terms of being able to get that funding.

Beverly: 18:19

Great point.

Leslie: 18:19

So those are the types of things that we do with our clients to help our clients and get a little more involved than just the transactional.

Beverly: 18:26

The thing that comes up for me as you're talking is the fact that, I'm 50 this year. My husband's retiring from the military in the next five years or so. What does retirement look like for us? And as I scale, the big goal is what happens at the end of this and how is this business an investment? Or what does it look like when I want step away? For anyone who's starting a business, there has to be an exit strategy at some point, whether it's for your children or whatever it looks like, or you sell it or you become like a quiet person in the business, whatever it looks like for you. But your books have to be in order to sell

Leslie: 19:01

Exactly. In order for that to even happen.

Beverly: 19:04

And there's things to think about, like reoccurring revenue and things that make your business more attractive. And somebody like Leslie and her team is going to be able to help you focus on those particular aspects of your books, right? So that you look the most appealing and you get the most bang at the end of the day for all this hard work, that blood, sweat, and tears that you have put into this business.

Leslie: 19:28

Exactly. And you bring up a really good point. We don't do taxes, but I've got partners that I work with that do taxes or, if a client comes to us and they have someone that does taxes, we work very closely with them. But you bring up a really good point around that. The recommendation, as I mentioned, is customized to your vision, your goal, and what you're trying to do. And a lot of times when people think about taxes, they think about minimizing tax liability. Which, on a p and l statement can look like you didn't make any money. But if you're trying to sell a business, if you're trying to get a loan or get funding, that's not a good look. You want to look profitable, you want there to be some money on the bottom line. And so again, if I know what you're going for, then I can say, Hey, maybe we do wanna do this, don't wanna do this. Those are discussions that we can then have. And then you don't find yourself in a situation where you're stuck.

Beverly: 21:29

So good. And I didn't realize that any of that before I started to have this vision of what I wanted, I wasn't thinking that way. I was just trying not to pay as much taxes as possible. Legally, of course. But, using my bookkeeper and my CPA as those resources to make sure that I was doing things, setting myself up as an S corp all those things to make sure that I was doing the right things, not co-mingling all the things to keep all the taxes, but when you are minimizing your tax. You are making look like you don't make money. And that is a big red flag. So the way that your numbers are shown needs to change if you're trying to sell your business. And even if your kids are taking over your business you want them to see the potential in the business. So you need to show them what this could look like for them in their lives. It would be a disservice if you didn't do that. So having your books in order is a gift for them not to have to fumble through. So we've talked a lot about financials and the only other thing I wanna add to this is the thing that from a money mindset issue that I have struggled with, and I can only imagine other people have struggled with this, and I think it's a really important conversation, is. What has money meant to you growing up? Like how did your parents talk about money? What was money like for you? For me, what it looked like was you work hard for your money. And I have this intense drive to work myself to death, literally, Leslie. Because if I work hard then I'll get the money. And what I realized is that's not necessarily, you have to work hard, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to work yourself to death or to burnout or to all those things that somehow have been tied up into, especially for women. And the thing that I work with a lot of entrepreneurs on their money mindset from a marketing perspective is if you're creating the business that you want, what does that really look like? So I would challenge our listeners to maybe go to chat and say, Hey, I'm working on my money mindset. Ask me some questions and help me reframe a few of these things. And that reframe and how you think about money and how you think about working hard and what do you think about success can be life changing and freeing business. And it's not something that's one and done. I'm constantly tweaking it and working on it and reminding myself the reason why I have my business is to be a mom, to be a good army spouse, to be able to go see my parents. Yeah. To be able to do those things. So remind yourself of why you're really doing the work

Leslie: 23:43

yeah.

Beverly: 23:43

Do you work on some of that kind of stuff too?

Leslie: 23:45

It's interesting you bring this topic up, I think it's a balance and let me tell you why. Before I started this business, I did a lot of research. While I was still working in corporate, I was listening to podcasts, I was reading books. I was reading all the things and do you know, I was doing my research. I was trying to understand what type of business to own and what this would be like and what might be best for me, and. Yeah, I've been in business seven years now and there's some, great entrepreneurs that I follow, that have built great entrepreneurial success. And what I found very interesting that is common among several of them is once they've reached a certain level of success, they've usually gone through some type of burnout. And then at some point they talk about it and they say when they're on the other side of I'm just gonna call it success, right? Yeah. They've built like a certain enterprise thing. Yeah. And they say their advice to me sounds like don't do what I did but my challenge, my issue with that is, had you not done some of what you did, you wouldn't be where you are. True. And so I think it's very much a balance of. You are gonna have to put in the work. We can't get around. There's going to be a period where I think you're going to feel overworked. And so it's a balance and you've got decisions to make along the way in terms of how fast you go and how fast you get there. For instance, for me this summer, I'm on somewhat of a summer break. I'm still working in my business, but some things I just stopped doing, for the last two months. I've not done much physical networking. I've not been on social media very much. I've not posted very much because I had to let some stuff go for a time period so I could kinda regroup. You know what I mean? Fortunately part of that decision that was helpful. I've got clients still coming in and my business model allows itself to be incremental. I bring on a client and it just adds this recurring revenue, that kind of thing. So it's very much a balance. What this business has allowed me to do, and I think we share that in what you just shared, is have flexibility. In 2021, I was able to help my mom when she had really bad symptoms from COVID. She had blood clots in her lungs and in her legs. She had a very hard time, like they were surprised that she made it okay. I was there in St. Louis for about seven weeks helping my parents. The business allowed me to do that. I was still able to work from their dining room. I set up my computer, I was working, I was helping them. It allowed me that flexibility to still do both things. I've been able to go on field trips with my son. He goes to a Christian school and my favorite trip, we got to go to Kentucky. Did you know there was a giant arc in Kentucky? Yeah, we went to the arc, we did a caving trip. So we went inside this cave in Tennessee. Then we did the arc, which was an awesome thing. And then we did the creation museum.

Beverly: 26:29

Oh yeah,

Leslie: 26:29

I got to do that. I just felt so fortunate, so blessed to be able to do that. And then two years ago to be able to help my mom again, my parents move into a senior apartments. It's not assisted, it's independent living. So there's in a senior community. But to be able to help them do that. And that was after being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Yeah. All those things, some of those happened in a row. Like I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December of 2021, and then I had my surgery, then I did radiation in 22, and then we helped our parents in 22 move. And I was sitting there thinking there's no way I could have kept a corporate job with all and not been able to show up in the way that I did because I was there helping my parents move. I was there researching, places for them to go and getting back. Like I couldn't have kept a corporate job after those things back to back. It wouldn't have happened. I didn't think about it that way until I was preparing for this discussion with you and I was like, wow. And that was part of the why of why I did this. But what did it also mean? It meant during that period, my business didn't grow very fast. I gotta be honest with that, right? Because I'm not out doing marketing, I don't have a huge team, so the business just wasn't growing. But, I was able to continue, right?

Beverly: 27:46

It served the season you were in.

Leslie: 27:48

It served the season I was in. And so now that's behind and we're in growth mode again. It was supposed to be that way. And and I feel really blessed to have been able to do that. To be able to still have my parents in their eighties, both of them, it's a blessing. And to be able to help them with whatever they need. I feel that as a blessing. That's a blessing to me. I can't, express it any other way.

Beverly: 28:09

Nothing in business is linear and like completely from point A to point b. I have this goal, I'm gonna go here. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. Maybe in the 0.0002% i'm just running out some random statistic there. But that's not how life works. Life is messy. Yeah. I'm a army wife, I'm a mom. Every three years we've moved. I have to reestablish my network every three years. I've moved 28 times in my life, Leslie. Oh my gosh. I have been an adopted mom, a foster mom, a stepmom. I have had a very serious injury in my hip for three and a half years and had to learn to walk again. This is life. This is the messy middle of life. And what I have found is that so many entrepreneurs don't realize is that you can create a business that works within your life. Zeke, when he was a baby, he was foster. And he was given to us, I don't know, he was two days old, from the hospital. So I don't get parental leave, I own my own business. That's not how it works. My husband deployed. Right after we got him. So is there anybody to take care of him at night? No. Is there anybody to take care of him? No. It was just me. I did have a mommy's helper for a little bit who was a neighbor girl, which was amazing. But there I was at 3:00 AM with Zeke on my shoulder. I was typing up proposals and doing the things because that's when he was awake and needed me and all he wanted to was be held. And I was like, I can do that while I do the work. But it wasn't like nine to five corporate. Perfect. It was exactly what you said at the dining room table. Doing what you can, when you can, how you can. It is like survival mode of just what can I do to make sure everybody's still happy. That's the messy middle.

29:37

Hey there, you've just finished part one of the Sparking Night, your marketing episode. How are you feeling? Excited, inspired, but we're just getting started. Next Tuesday we're dropping part two, and you won't wanna miss it. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, so you'll be the first to know when it goes live. Until then, take a breather, let those ideas simmer, and we'll see you next week.