Mark Firmin is the President and COO of ACOM Solutions, a company with a long and successful history of developing, distributing, and supporting integrated B2B software solutions. He is also the CEO of eTreem, a firm that delivers integrated receivables and payment processing for US-based businesses.
Mark is a transformative and results-driven B2B tech leader known for his ability to drive short and long-term strategic goals. He has completed four successful exits, including a b2b FinTech acquired by American Express.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Mark Firmin explains how ACOM Solutions and eTreem help their customers
The challenges companies face with their accounts receivables
ACOM’s ideal customer profile
The development of eTreem
Mark explains why they focus on accounts receivable
The importance of listening to your customers
Tips for acquiring the first paying customer as a startup
In this episode…
Account receivables is a complex aspect of business that can easily become problematic. So how do you solve the issues that arise as a result?
There are many things to consider for a company to run its account receivables smoothly. They include accuracy, speed, cost, quality, and internal controls, which might be difficult for a team to handle. Mark Firm shares his journey building a SaaS-based platform that automates most steps to simplify the process.
Listen to this episode of The Customer Wins as host Rich Walker welcomes Mark Firmin, President and COO of ACOM Solutions, to discuss how companies can successfully run their account receivables. Mark explains how ACOM Solutions and eTreem help customers with their account receivables, their ideal customer profile, why they focus on accounts receivable, and the importance of listening to your customers.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn grow their business.
Richard Walker 0:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Aaron Klein, the CEO of Nitrogen, and Ashton Moore partner at Model B. Today I'm excited to speak with Mark Firmin president and chief operating officer of ACOM solutions and CEO and co-founder of eTreem. Now today's episode is brought to you by Quik! the leader in enterprise forms processing. When the last step to earning your clients business requires processing paperwork, don't ruin a good relationship with a bad experience. Instead, get Quik Forms, make processing forms a great experience and the easiest part of your transaction. Visit quikforms.com to learn how we make processing forms easy. Before I introduce today's guest, I have to give a big thank you to a good friend Mike Jalonen for introducing me to Mark go check out Mike's newest solution to drive better habits at habitdriven.ai All right. I'm so excited to talk to Mark. Mark Firmin serves as president and chief operating officer of ACOM solutions and CEO and co-founder of eTreem man You must be busy or there. for over 25 years ACOM has been a holding company of multiple b2b Software Solutions either built from startup or through acquisition. Mark is also CEO and cofounder of ACOM's latest startup etreem.com. eTreem delivers integrated receivables and payment processing for US-based businesses with revenue between one and $500 million. Mark has over 20 years of experience in b2b payments and SaaS solutions. He's built a reputation as a transformative and results-driven b2b tech leader and has completed for successful exits, including a b2b FinTech that was acquired by American Express. Wow, Mark. Welcome to The Customer Wins.
Mark Firmin 2:07
Hi, Richard. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Richard Walker 2:10
Now, if you haven't heard this podcast before I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they build and deliver great customer experience and the challenges to growing their own company. Mark, we want to understand your business a little bit better. How does your company help people?
Mark Firmin 2:25
Well, first of all, thanks for the opportunity. Rich, it's good to see you again. You mentioned Mike, and that's how we met you're in call. We served as directors on the board for one of Mike's start up and it was an amazing 18 months, I'd love to share that we both exited that with a big windfall in regards to money. On the other hand, it really was a windfall in learnings in regards to what can be a challenge with a startup, it was a good experience. And I'm really pleased to hear that Mike's new business is doing so well. So I think you'll be happy with the shout-out. That was great.
Richard Walker 3:04
I think it's a good lesson to remind people, I mean, we get so enamored with startups, but they don't always work out the way we want. And man, I mean, Mike had like a six or seven-year run, it wasn't something simple or trivial, even so, yeah, I think it's a good reminder for everybody. But what are you doing now?
Mark Firmin 3:20
So Rich, thank thanks again. So right now, yes, I am wearing the hat of President and CEO of ACOM solutions, which is, as you mentioned, a holding company. So ACOM has always invested in businesses that deliver tech solutions, predominantly SAS into the accounting function, here in the US, but also in Europe. And what we saw was an opportunity early last year for addressing the receivable side of the accounting department. So every business has to build their customers. And it's always a challenge to get those customers to pay you quickly as a business owner. And then even if they do pay you quickly, you have to process that, that payment and the and you have to match the remittance with that payment against the invoice if that's the way that you bill your clients, you have to reconcile that in your accounting system, and then not 100% of your customers paying you so you have to chase down those customers that are not paying you. And you pay for the pleasure of doing that because you have processing fees depending on what means you collect payment from your customer. So credit card fees, even checks have fees associated with them. So eTreem the concept is this. We help your customers pay you faster, we simplify your accounts receivable process. And we do that by reducing. We do that while reducing your payment processing costs. That's our value proposition for US-based businesses.
Richard Walker 4:58
Man you just said so many different things. So I mean, when you just think about the process that you talked about, there's so many moving parts, right? It's the collection and like is it ACH is that cheque is that credit card and all these different methods and forget cash, I'm glad b2b, we don't do a lot of cash business. And I think just about my own company, we had a customer who grew really big and then went from credit card, paying us 300 a month to 1000s and 1000s a month, and they continue to want to pay credit card, our fee was like 300 a month just to process their credit card. So is that something that you would help us with if that were the case?
Mark Firmin 5:33
Actually we should talk offline about you possibly being a customer for us. We can definitely help that. You gave one example. Now imagine a business that's doing 345 100 million on their top line. With many customers paying them all different payment rails, that's the term we use for check, ACH and so forth. And it just gets very complicated. And most businesses, their department, their accounts receivable department, they are using just labor to manage that processing of the bound remittance and payment and match it the human errors that can occur, best intentions aside, human error always occurs. So we've built a SaaS-based platform that automates most of those steps. The key is, have your accounts receivable staff focused on chasing those customers that aren't paying you on time, or have underpaid, that's where you should be leveraging your resources, and we take care of the rest. So yeah, your example of 300 bucks, we can help reduce that a little bit for you rich, we should talk offline.
Richard Walker 6:37
So I think about a lot of these companies, Slack, we signed up pay with a credit card, you go Airbnb sign up, pay with a credit card. And those types of businesses that are SaaS or online, is that a kind of company that you can help with this process?
Mark Firmin 6:49
If it would be an example of a client that we would work with, we want the client to be of a certain size, amount of revenue that they're processing. So a small use example of Airbnb, someone who's got maybe be this. But if someone's got a portfolio of Airbnb, maybe we can help them? Yes. The key is that they've got relationships with clients is just how do we help them improve that relationship? How do you make it easier for your customer, so that it's not too much work. So the challenge with those examples that you gave a better example might be a business that does T-shirts, just a lot of T-shirts, and they're selling to other businesses, right? Many of us go to trade shows now, and we want to get those work in the booth to have a certain shirt. So that's a business a t-shirt manufacturer that sell into other businesses. And in that example, they may well enable their or invite their customers to pay with a credit card. And so we can piggyback on that. And we can help reduce some of the costs on the back end. But many of those businesses build different ways some of the business wants to receive an invoice, they want an invoice submitted to them. So when you've got a different lot of different payment rails, the customers want to pay you on, that's where we really add value, because there’s complexity there, that's where we make a difference. That's where we really help those types of businesses.
Richard Walker 8:26
Yeah, because not everybody is a pure digital play where they only take one credit card format, like Stripe only or something. So if they're dealing with a lot of different variety, they have to get that you have a lot of hands in the pot to make it work. I get that.
Mark Firmin 8:40
if I may, one of the reasons we develop this business is that the parent company is a ACOM. ACOM has stood up eTreem. Now ACOM, one of its others businesses is called ACOM Software. ACOM Software serves about 1100 corporate clients here in the US and Europe. And they average about 500 million each on their receivable. So there's about 500 billion half a trillion dollars of calls that are coming in to those clients. And what we started to realize is those businesses across all industries like manufacturing distribution, that could be retail, but many different businesses. And they at that size, from an accounting perspective, often have customers that are US, but also could be international. So you've got an issue with foreign exchange, you've then got multiple entities, they might be a holding company. So they're trying to handle accounting for multiple functions. But at the end of the day, their financial accounting needs to roll all that up. So when you get into the accounts receivable in that kind of environment, you can imagine the complexity is much greater than the business that's doing just a couple of million. And so what we tried to do is build a platform that can scale for both some small business, but also these what we typically call also medium-sized businesses. But personally, if I was running a $500 business, I don't think I would call it a medium-sized business, I would probably call it a enterprise. But that's the classification that's used. So what I'm trying to say is that the complexity and how we can make a difference for these customers, it vary so much. And that's what makes the job fun, though, right? I mean, you build a platform, but then you have so many different situations and so much complexity, if those challenges are what we live on. That's fun to us.
Richard Walker 10:31
So I love hearing this kind of story, Mark, because I love the entrepreneurs journey. I mean, I know you sold your company to a calm long time ago, and you were a startup and entrepreneur, now you're in a position of helping startups and doing another startup. And one of the coolest parts of what we just said, if I can understand this correctly, is you have built something that your existing 1100 customers might want or need. So you're gonna take it to them. I mean, whether you sell it outside is, it's great if you can, and you will, I'm sure but you have this built-in audience to go after right?
Mark Firmin 11:03
Often we forget that what we have already as an inner customer is very valuable to the business, we often forget that and it doesn't mean that you just try to upsell them on something, no, you've got an opportunity and a relationship, go talk to them. So if I may, eTreem was started in April, officially, the start date was April the first of 2022. So here we are in July of 23. So what's that 15 months of age, we put the money in on the business on eTreem. And then all we did was invest in product development and customer conversations. So all we literally did for 12 have been doing for 12 months is non-revenue generating activity, all we have done is go talk to customers, and ask them what challenges they have around accounts receivable. Now it helps that they have an ACOM solution that has to be on the payable side. So we can call them up and have a discussion about what challenges or hurt exists in on the receivables. And when you've got a customer that averages 15 plus years with you, you've got a tight enough relationship, you can leverage that. But when you have a conversation, it's so much easier to just say to someone, hey, we are exploring how we can make a difference for you. Could you please help us understand your processes today for receivable and what your challenges are. And it's amazing what you will learn, we took that information. And all we did was just keep developing product such that by the second quarter of this year. So again, almost 12 months, April, we were able to roll out which we call a MVP a minimum viable product, it will address certain issues that we saw patterns in our customers. So then what we started doing in the second quarter was reach out to those customers and share with them what we had developed to date. Now you start having a conversation where you get temperature about well, is this something that they would commit to at this time in the form of dollars investment? And if not, what do we need to do to get them to do so. But it was nice, because we've had those initial conversations where we listen to them, for us to now come back and share what we heard from them. You're just opening doors. And now fortunately, we're in a nice position within eTreem, that we have this large parent in a ACOM. That's funding and bringing cash in. But what was great was that the board that ACOM that oversee an eTreem that, I was constantly in chat discussion with them presenting, they kept saying to me Do not worry about revenue, worry about customer needs, understand what our customer wants, then go. We'll worry about revenue later. So second quarter of this year, the most recent board meeting, I presented the findings from our research and how we were now talking to customers. And they said, okay, great. Now we need to get some expertise on the sales side of the house. So ACOM fortunately funded our next phase, which is we are now hiring today three reps. We're investing in a new marketing agency to overhaul our positioning and our website. Most importantly, we have set dollars aside for discretionary marketing lead generation. But the message to these new sales rep says yeah, go get some business, get us new customers. But more importantly, we want feedback about what customers do or do not like about what we're doing. Because we need to hit our next milestone, which is product market fit. How does our solution really help these customers? And then how do we possibly scale that? So we're not at that stage even though we're invested in sales and marketing. It's still exploratory for the next 12 months, it is money being invested They need to understand our customers, before we even really start to grow this business, but that's what it takes this day and age, I think to be successful.
Richard Walker 15:08
Mark, this is one of the things I liked about you so much is that you have this methodical clear view of how to bring product to market and how to build a customer needs. I mean, you are exemplifying how customers win because you're listening to what the customer wants. So I want to ask you a question that before you start asking them, how did you decide AR accounts receivable would be the focus? Why not something else? You must at ACOM have a view to 20 different problems your customers have? How did you guys come to this idea of we should focus on AR and then go ask these questions.
Mark Firmin 15:44
There's a little history there. So bear with me, as I tell you this journey that we took at ACOM, as a company has been in business for over 30 years, actually over 30 years, and has always had a number of solutions that were on the accounts payable side of the business. So solutions that help you pay others, for example, software that at one time was actually micro Cheque Printing and printers and consumer, which then moved into the digitization of payments. How do you pay people with ACH, which is later become? How do you pay? If you're a buyer, how do you pay your suppliers on a virtual credit cards, which are tokenized credit cards instead of just plastic cards, and that's become a growth in regards to payments? Well, what we have done is we have seen that development because we've been in that business for decades. And in 2015 2016 at ACOM, we saw the opportunity to take that whole payable side of the business to a whole new level. And we built what's called a automated Accounts Payable solution. The automated Accounts Payable solution was just everything for the last 20 years in one simple SaaS-based platform that would enable businesses to control their suppliers and how they pay the that's the business that we built over three and a half years and American Express come and bought from us in October of 2019. So we had 20 years in the making of that successful three year run. And we sold the business. So a lot of people tell me Wow, three years, we sold a business to American Express. And actually it was 20 years of late night and working many things but people don't want to hear the work, they just want to hear about the fun success. So, we had always been on the payable side. And now in 2020 to 23, you've seen a lot more investment on the payable side, what you were not seeing through that entire run was much on the receivable side. Okay, and so we enter 22 and my co-founder and I of eTreem, he was the individual that built the platform on the payable side, we said that there are solutions out there and receivables. But the adoption is still small. And that market is growing. And we know that the investment community were hungry for investments on the receivable side, because they've been so much M&A American Express buying us some of our competitors getting bought by other players, that the investment community is saying there's got to be sank on the receivables. And we knew that because we had been on the payable side, and we know what it's like to pay suppliers. Therefore, what all that means is that when we went into 22, we said there's an obvious need here. It's a gross market, we can play here on the receivables. So it's sort of an evolution. So I always say to every entrepreneur, you have got to be in the game to win. We've been in this game so long in so many different ways. Looking at it, we think we're in in the area that's going to win. We'll probably talk about a moment pivot in, but we think we're in the right area at this time to succeed.
Richard Walker 18:59
Let's define something you just said a little bit better, because I've heard that phrase, you have to be in the game to win. But I've always thought that you just have to play the game. But I think you're saying is you have to play the game for a period of time, a long period of time to understand it. See nuance see opportunity. See angles nobody else has seen and build this body of experience that you guys built so that you can be in a position to take advantage of an opportunity that you're now identifying.
Mark Firmin 19:24
I think you summed it up well, and I mentioned pivot. Yeah, with that experience you know if you're on a path, it's not right. You can pivot off of it, because you've got that prior experience. And you have the best way that you think it's the best idea but the reality is others around you would advise you that, maybe that's not the best idea and here's why. But if you've got that years of experience in this area, you know that you'll listen and you'll make a change. I think I told you Rich that i I've been doing angel investing myself individually for years. I really turned it on the last couple of years. is. And I have to tell you that when I look at investments for startup, the number one I look at, if this is the team, and you want the passion, the excitement they're willing to commit, but if they've got experience in this space, and they've been at it for a long time, and looked at it different ways, I love that I don't need the 20-year-old entrepreneur, I would rather all day long as someone that's got the long in the tooth experience, from different perspectives, because that, to me, is invaluable in being able to succeed,
Richard Walker 20:33
I want to share with you one of my favorite things about entrepreneurs who want to come raise money, and they've got this new idea, they're really excited. And they give you the pitch and the pitch is, if we can just give 5% of the market, we'll do $5 billion in sales.
Mark Firmin 20:49
I think that...
Richard Walker 20:51
It teaches you, you don't get a percentage of the market. It's not about that. It's about solving a problem. It's about customers saying yes to your solution, and you saying yes to their need and being able to provide it. So I totally appreciate what you're saying that you talk to somebody who's been there and done that for a while they get it, they're mature enough to know how to go to the next thing, which is exactly what the example is, you're giving that you took a stance, you said, Hey, we should go into receivables. And then everything you said was you went and talk to your customer? You listen to them, you understood them. And yeah, I'm sure you gain just incredible valuable insights. So I have another question about that. How did you sift out the truth? Because I'm sure you heard a lot of different things, some more important than others, right?
Mark Firmin 21:35
I think you're looking for patterns is the answer to that. You don't know whether or not where their problem lies, how big a problem that really is in the market. But if you start hearing the same thing from multiple people, then you're onto something. And one of the tricks I found over the years is that just let customers talk. Just let them share and don't stare them because they will get there in the end about what's really driving pain in their business. Just let them talk. And don't worry if they're not in the area that you thought they should be in. Because that means something they might have a pain somewhere else. It's like going to the doctor, oh, my shoulder really hurts. Okay, but let's ask. I thought you came in here because you had a bad leg here, but got my shoulder really hurt questions and you find out they fell over this morning. And they really hurt their shoulder. Okay, well spend time on the shoulder. Just listen to your customers. And they will take you there. I agree with you there's a lot of noise. And that's where you got to talk to more than just a handful. You got to talk to as many as you possibly can.
Richard Walker 22:41
Yeah, no, I applaud you. So you said you've got your first customer? And I'm curious, how did you win that first customer? Like? How did you get them to say yes, getting your first paying customer is one of the hardest things and most gratifying things about a new business or a new product? Is there a story there that you could share?
Mark Firmin 22:58
Well, what you said was paying customer. Okay, so with our solution, this first round of first customer we bought on the platform, and the first that we will bring on, we are willing to give them the actual platform that someone would normally pay for. And the reason for that is that we can get paid on a per-transaction basis. Customer to come on board, we're removing all the barriers, right? That's the trick with a new solution. And the reality is, for most small businesses, it's friendlies that are going to buy from you, if I owe you give it in our first customer, the way we got it through the door is there's no upfront costs, we only get paid on a transaction. In other words, we have the same skin in the game as you because if it doesn't work, and you're not getting paid, we're not getting our per transaction fee. So the dollars is always part of it. The other is that for our solution, there's an integration, one of the value points that we bring is tight integration with their underlying accounting system. Well, I've got a team that goes back to the experience and been in this game for a long time. They've done over 100 different accounting integrations, and every system is slightly different. So we can give confidence to the customer, that their investment of time because they're not costing them anything but it's still time, which is just as invaluable, is very minimal because we do all the heavy lifting. So what we did to get that first customer was say, what would be the reasons for them to say no, so they don't want to pay for it too much time and effort or too much training for the staff. Or if it doesn't work, job security, right. So what we showed them was the no front upfront we do all the work implemented of training was minimal anyway, we built that platform we just needed to show it and we had a failsafe we could pull the eject button, and we could switch them back to the way they were. If it really hit the fan. It didn't. Right? It didn't. Yeah, right. Exactly.
Richard Walker 25:11
New products are scary like that.
Mark Firmin 25:14
Yeah, but a lot of I think entrepreneurs, that's one of the challenges they have with a new product is they can't understand why customers won't buy, it's a great price, it has all this value. And they seem to ignore the simple fact of the buyer has what's called job security. When I first started out in the late 90s, you will always bought IBM at the cost, because you knew it was gonna work. Yeah, that theory, right. And that, because I've been in tech for this long show my age, the many entrepreneurs, when they first go out there with their first product, don't realize, regardless of the value proposition, the buyer still may say no, because they can't afford the risk of buying from you a small startup.
Richard Walker 25:57
So there's a couple of underlying things that you said there. Obviously, price is always a factor, but it's actually about value, as much as anything, it doesn't have to be pricing. And sometimes people are willing to pay because the value you're delivering is so high and so obvious to them. But another really, really big one is trust. They trust you because they've been working with ACOM possibly they trust you because you guys have this wealth of background and experience and knowledge. And you're not just with this fresh idea that you're telling them what they have to do. You've listened to them, you've talked to them over this course a period of time. And all these things are overlooked up quite often by entrepreneurs when they start a business that is so critical. Play within your content, expertise, know that industry know those people get to know them really well build that trust and that rapport price becomes less of an issue. And I get it in your case, I've given away software at low cost, because I mean, it's software, right, the investment was building the thing, whether I make 100 bucks on it for a couple of months, it's not really a deal breaker for me. Right? So I think that's really, really cool. I want to switch gears a little bit if you don't mind. And talk about a little bit about artificial intelligence. I mean, you are in FinTech and SaaS, you have to have an opinion on this. But my core question is, how do you see AI changing or impacting customer experience? And what you're doing even?
Mark Firmin 27:18
Yeah, and what we're doing, when I look at AI, yes, I'm in tech. And yes, I'm in FinTech. And yes, AI is going to be big here. So I probably as a little bit more advanced knowledge than others, but probably way behind some of the more early adopters. So with that large grain of salt. What I look at is AI is based on data. And we are collecting a lot of data on the customer invoices, stroke payments that are going through our system, where if you look at our product roadmap, as is not about some of the value I talked about in regards to streamlining and saving costs, as is about how do we help our customer maximize their receivables, and the impact that has on their business around cash flow? And if you look at our roadmap, we are much more interested in making sure everyone's maximizing their working capital. And the way we can do that, and we're looking at using data is in AI is what patterns trends do we see in their customer base, where you have the opportunity to on dynamically, maybe negotiate with clients on the payment date, based on terms so that you can maximize your working capital, your cash? How do we empower our customer with that, so they have a dashboard that visually is representing that, from an AR perspective, that specific function? That's how we are looking at our roadmap, we have a three-year roadmap right now, that's much more than what I've described. And using AI on that data is big for us, because that's very valuable to our clients.
Richard Walker 29:13
So it makes me think about like, would your AI help a company who can't collect on a debt receivable, I should say, negotiate it down, predict like, hey, offer this to this customer, you're most likely to get it or something like that.
Mark Firmin 29:28
I think it'd be even earlier than that. So how do you make sure that you don't have collections involved? How do you get to the point that you're being alerted when you've got possibility of a customer not paying you? There's always circumstances right, the other customer, the natural disaster has resulted in they can't pay it. Maybe we can do about those. On the other hand, there are trends maybe in certain industries, you're in certain industries. Is the certain indicators that would suggest this customer, your customer may have challenges in their business? How do we pull in data and highlight that before it gets to the point that it's really in collections, and it's at 60 or 90 days? What can we do to empower our customers, so they know 30 days or less, depending on their business, but that's pretty typical in b2b space, that there's a possibility of no payment, or you have to negotiate down to get some cash. That's where we want to catch it. Now that's valuable. It depends on the business as well. I mean, many businesses just accept percentages right off. And so it just depends on what industry you're in, and whether or not we want to address that.
Richard Walker 30:44
Yeah, has this fascinating, it's making me a little bit scared, because you might say, across all of our customers, we know this company is not paying these four of our customers right now we can predict until this company that they're not gonna get paid, wait a minute, you can see the trend of my spending or not spending. It's interesting, what could happen with this?
Mark Firmin 31:03
Well, what you're getting into there is a network effect is just how big are we and how much data we have. And that's where we really drive value in our business. And when we look at how valuable this business is, if we've got a 10, 50 or $100 million business, I'm just the solution I've described, that's great. And on a SaaS that gets a very high model valuation. However, if we've got enough volume on the platform, and we're collecting the kind of data that you just brought up, which is we've got a supplier across multiple, if dealing with multiple buyers. And we can see, that's where we would really drive value in our business. So Rich, it sounds that I should be asking you to be on our product management committee with that kind of observation.
Richard Walker 31:48
You know I'm a product guy, Mark. Oh, man, this has been such a good conversation. As I wrap this up, I do another question for you. But before I ask it, what's the best way for people to find and connect with you?
Mark Firmin 32:01
Oh, my goodness, can we hide these days? Rich, the best way is, please find me on LinkedIn. I accept anyone that comes on LinkedIn. It's just a habit that I have. And they can always message me through LinkedIn.
Richard Walker 32:08
Awesome. Yeah, you're great to find. Okay, so here's my last question Mark, who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style or how you approach your role today?
Mark Firmin 32:22
Great, great, timely question. It's my 29th wedding anniversary on Sunday. Wow. And so I am going to give a shout-out to my wife, Liza Riolo, who has kept me humble throughout my entire career, and has been there when it's been tough, which is great, also, just as importantly, told me when to maybe I need to take a step back and let some others take the glory and the praise for what they've done and contributed. So it's to my wife, Liza Riolo.
Richard Walker 32:58
I think that's wonderful. I recently drew all the events in my life up and down good or bad. And you can clearly see, when I met my wife, everything went to the positive forever. I mean, it's such an amazing thing to have such a strong relationship, and I admire your accomplishment of 29 years. I hope to get there too. I expect to.
Mark Firmin 33:19
Yeah, yeah. It's been a special time. And like I said, I'm now what I'm trying to do is work on the 30th-year event. I think I got a year to plan for it. So, that's gonna be the big one.
Richard Walker 33:32
Yeah, for sure. Well, congratulations to you both. I want to say thank you very much to Mark Firmin president of ACOM, CEO of eTreem for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Mark's website at acominvest.com and etreen.com. Right. And don't forget to check out Quik at quikforms.com where we take the work out of paperwork. I hope you've enjoyed this discussion. Will click the like button, share this with someone and even subscribe to our channel for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Mark, thank you so much for joining me today.
Mark Firmin 33:37
Thank you Rich pleasure.
Outro 34:10
Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time. And be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
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