Accountants Are Hot, WeightWatchers Is Not, and We’re Hiring.
The Weekly from The Liquid Lunch Project, Issue No 160 | April 11, 2025
Jeremy Clarkson—TV host, car nut, and professional sarcasm dispenser—turns a year older today, so naturally we’re celebrating with one of his best lines: “Being smarter than you look is better than looking smarter than you are.” And honestly, it might be the best business advice you’ll ever get from a man who’s flipped more cars than most people have driven. In a world full of try-hards, influencers, and founders who talk big but deliver small, sometimes it pays to be the one quietly getting sh*t done behind the scenes. Forget the hype. Be the underestimated genius who surprises everyone—especially the ones judging by your hoodie.
ON TAP THIS WEEK
📌 Job Posts That Don’t Suck (and other secrets to finding good people)
👀 NCAA agrees to pay athletes…then bench thousands.
😘 Tax Season? More Like Hiring Season: Are accountants sexy again?
📞 The IRS Called… Nevermind, no it didn’t.
🍦 They Said “Health Trend,” Cinnabon Said “More Frosting”
📉 Bankruptcy? That’s one way to lose pounds.
🚨 Free Webinar Next Week! Fix your finances, build credit, and scale without the red tape. Get all the details below.
🌐 And from Around the Web: Designer wolves, outlaw cats, and HBO made your coffee awkward.
THE CLASSROOM
The Talent Drought is Real: 7 Creative Recruitment Strategies for Small Businesses
by Luigi Rosabianca
Hiring in 2025? Feels like trying to find a unicorn… in a desert… blindfolded… with Wi-Fi issues. Between ghosting applicants, TikTok résumés, and your competition luring candidates with cold brew on tap, recruiting is officially a sh*tshow. But don’t panic—this guide dishes out 7 clever, zero-BS hiring strategies to help you find actual humans who will show up, care, and maybe even stay.
🚨 Oh, and speaking of hiring…Credit Banc is on the hunt for smart, hungry Business Advisors who want big commissions, real impact, and zero corporate nonsense. If that’s you 👉 Click here to read the full post & apply.
HEARD ON THE STREET
🏀 Gamesmanship
Starting this fall, US colleges and universities could share athletics revenue with players for the first time ever under a controversial settlement poised to get final approval from a federal judge.
It’s seen as the biggest structural overhaul in college sports history.
Colleges will have a ~$20.5M annual salary cap with which to pay athletes directly, rising to ~$30M over a decade. The rule change automatically applies to the ‘power five’ conferences, while other schools can opt-in. The NCAA would impose roster limits, potentially cutting thousands of players and commitments, many of whom have already been told they’ll lose their spots if the settlement goes through. A third-party clearinghouse run by Deloitte would oversee every name, image, and likeness (NIL) deal worth more than $600 to ensure schools aren’t paying students more than they’re permitted. The NCAA and schools would also split $2.75B in backpay to D1 athletes who played before NIL deals became kosher in ‘21. Football and basketball players would get the lion’s share.
Meanwhile, LSU gymnast/influencer Olivia Dunne and several other current and former college athletes bashed the settlement during a court hearing this week over whether the judge should grant final approval, asserting their allocated damages undervalued them and calling roster limits ‘cruel.’ Other arguments against the settlement include potential antitrust and Title IX violations. Expect overtime…ahem, appeals…which could delay these payments to scholar-athletes.
🤓 Bean Counters Abound
Accounting is the new must-have skill for global organizations. The accounting industry saw a 74% hiring increase for accountants in 2024. A notoriously unsexy career is having a major moment as companies can’t get enough number-crunching accountants. And they’re busy counting their own beans as well. Accountant salaries grew 15% last year, faster than they did for any other profession. Declining interest in the profession from early-career workers and the increasingly complex tax requirements of a global workforce have made accountants a precious and increasingly pricy commodity.
Once the golden children of the workforce, software engineers have taken a back seat. The profession saw a 22% hiring increase last year and an 8% salary increase. RTO mandates are giving domestic hiring a boost. While organizations are still hiring globally, data shows an uptick in the number of employers who are favoring candidates closer to home.
ICYMI: We just shared a post on 7 creative hiring strategies for small businesses—if you skipped it, scroll back up this email. It’s worth it. ⬆️
🧮 Accounting Can be Taxing
The government’s piggy bank has shrunk so much it’s struggling to get up and work. IRS audits are at a record low and could plunge even further following DT47’s cost cuts.
Audit rates for personal income taxes fell from ~1% (about 1 in every 100 tax returns) in 2010 to just 0.36% in 2023 (roughly 1 in 300). The audit rate fell below 0.5% in 2020 for the first time on record. The IRS has collected only $4.5B from 2019 personal audits so far, down from $11B from audits of 2010 returns, and there have been ‘steep declines’ in corporate audits, too.
The IRS cut more than 20% of its 95K-person workforce between 2010 and 2019, leaving burdened workers with less room for time-consuming high-income audits, which can recover $100K+ from a single flawed tax return. Auditing could get worse as DOGE plans to cut 18K+ IRS workers, which would cost the government $6.8B in lost tax revenue next year. As many as 5K IRS employees have already accepted buyouts.
The White House just announced that the IRS will start sharing undocumented taxpayers’ information with ICE, which reportedly could violate federal privacy laws. DOGE is also seeking to widen access to taxpayer info. Fun times to be alive in D.C.
🍦 Let’s Give it a Swirl
Dialysis centers and oncologists rejoice! Cinnabon is attempting to reinvent itself with Cinnabon Swirl, a new store that pairs its cinnamon rolls with sister brand Carvel’s ice creams. Jim Holthouser, CEO of Cinnabon's parent company, GoTo Foods, asserts the concept aligns with ‘little treat culture,’ a trend among millennials and Gen Z customers who enjoy low-cost indulgences.
Ignoring the trend in healthy foods and nutrition, the first store opens in Oregon next month, followed by another three this year and 30 in 2026. GoTo Foods franchises their brands, which also include Auntie Anne’s, Jamba, and Schlotzsky’s. Pitching owners to invest in an unproven concept is often met with hesitancy. GoTo Foods has built up its portfolio with smaller, niche brands that largely depend on foot traffic, attracting customers as they are out shopping or traveling. That means the economics of their restaurants are not as sustainable as standalone locations. It’s trying to solve that problem by opening more co-branding locations, emulating the success of plugging Auntie Anne’s into Jamba and Cinnabon locations. Over/under this business model fails in 12 months, anyone?
💸 The Weight is Over
WeightWatchers is preparing for bankruptcy. Ozempic and related drugs, bragging about their heap of potential health benefits, are now on the verge of taking out a company that’s been around since 1963. The debt-laden WW International, aka WeightWatchers, is preparing to file for bankruptcy to facilitate a deal to hand itself over to its creditors.
The company has $1.4B of loans and bonds (that’s a lot of fat to trim) coming due in the next few years, and while it may negotiate a deal out of court, it’s most likely to seek Chapter 11 protection sometime in the next few months. What could WW have done differently to avoid this fate? With that robust (ahem!) database of subscribers and members, they could have become an outlet or distributor for said drugs. But no one likes change, especially if you’ve been successful for close to 7 decades. Business 101: evolve or devolve.
THE MONEY MINUTE WITH MRM
Build Credit. Access Capital. Grow Smarter. All in 45 Minutes.
with Matthew R. Meehan
If Q1 left your business budget looking like a bad hangover, don’t stress; here’s your reset button. Join Credit Banc and Intrepid on Thursday, April 17 at 1PM ET for a FREE 45-minute webinar built specifically for small and mid-sized business owners who want to clean up their credit, access smarter funding, and scale without the usual financial drama.
You’ll learn how to:
✅ Spot the financial red flags holding you back
✅ Clean up and build better business credit
✅ Access capital without drowning in paperwork
✅ Avoid the Q2 mistakes that stunt growthYou’ll hear directly from experts who’ve helped thousands of entrepreneurs get strategic (and funded), including Matt Meehan and Luigi Rosabianca of Credit Banc, and the power team at Intrepid. Can’t attend live? Register anyway and get the full replay straight to your inbox.
Ready to grow your business? Grab your free spot now — register here.
AROUND THE WEB
Fluffy. Feral. Fresh Outta Prehistory: Colossal Biosciences just brought back the dire wolf. (Apparently, Jurassic Park wasn’t a cautionary tale; it was a blueprint.) The biotech firm edited gray wolf DNA to create wolf pups that look like dire wolves, act like dire wolves, and might one day star in a gritty HBO reboot. Critics say they’re not “real” dire wolves, but hey, if it growls like one…
Paws Off! These Cats Aren’t for Sale: New York’s bodega cats are beloved, technically illegal, and totally in charge. Sure, they violate state food regulations—but they also keep the rats out, charm the customers, and occasionally go viral. Inspectors may grumble, but New Yorkers know: these cats are non-negotiable.
Please Wash Your Blender Before Use: Coffee-Mate teamed up with The White Lotus to release a piña colada creamer—right before the finale featured a poisoned piña colada nearly killing half the cast. Nestlé didn’t know. Fans freaked out. And now your morning coffee has trust issues.