I’ve been thinking about something as I’ve gotten deeper into the CPA acquisition world — the deals I’m structuring are retention-based, so a lot of what I’m actually acquiring is the seller’s trust, not just their client list. Which makes me wonder: does a retiring CPA really have a buyer problem, or a trust-transfer problem? There’s no shortage of interest in buying accounting practices. But if you’ve been someone’s CPA for 20 or 30 years, “who will pay me the most for my book?” is only part of the equation. You’re also deciding who you’re going to introduce to hundreds of people and essentially say: I trust this person to take care of you when I’m not here anymore. And in a lot of these deals, the seller is then asked to finance part of the purchase price or tie it to retention. So now they’re trusting the buyer with both their clients and part of their retirement proceeds. It makes me wonder whether we spend too much time talking about succession as a valuation and financing problem when the harder problem is actually transferring trust from one CPA to another. For anyone who has bought or sold a CPA/accounting practice — did this turn out to be a bigger part of the deal than you expected?