Own The Promise

Latest Episodes:

Industry Forward: Brent Terhaar, Life Sciences May 15, 2019

In the first segment of this two-part podcast, Brent describes the fateful meeting that changed his career and pioneered a whole new life science industry practice. He traces his journey to that point and how he looked out with excitement — and no small degree of discomfort — at where this opportunity was heading. Nine months later, in part two, he tells us that growth in life sciences is up more than 20 percent — and how this once fledgling practice is moving from “experienced” to truly “specialized.”

Industry Forward: Eric Beenken and Brendan Kurvers Apr 19, 2019

Got an entrepreneurial spark but haven’t yet aligned your passions with your work? That’s when the joyless daily grind can set in — but also some real creative tension and the possibility for exciting career growth and satisfaction. Eric Beenken and Brenan Kurvers personal stories can show you how industry specialization may be just the thing that turns your spark into a fire. Industry Forward starts now!

[00:00:00]

John: Welcome, CLA family, to Industry Forward, a podcast designed to tell the stories behind the CLA promise. We create opportunities when we live the CLA culture, leadership, ownership, entrepreneurship.

[00:00:17]

At the center of CLA promise is our purpose, our why for existence, to create opportunities for our clients, create opportunities for our people, and create opportunities for our communities. Industry specialization propels, enables, and drives all of those. Industry specialization drives seamless capabilities. Industry specialization drives careers.

[00:00:46]

So why specialize? A better question is, “How do you get started? And what’s it like when you’re just getting going?” So today, we’ve invited Eric Beenken from our River Valley region, specializing agribusiness but really in the pork industry, and Brendan Kurvers from our Minneapolis office. He’s part of the M&D team but has been taken on the leadership of driving our food and beverage practice. Welcome to the mic, guys.

[00:01:15]

Eric: Thanks, John.

[00:01:16]

Brendan: Thanks, John.

[00:01:17]

John: Glad to have you here. I’m gonna start with a really simple question if I can today, just to get started. Let’s start with your personal story. Brendan, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:27]

Brendan: Yeah, certainly. Grew up in the south side of Minneapolis here, so grew up in Burnsville, Minnesota, which is about three suburbs out of Minneapolis. Wound up at North Dakota State in Fargo. So spent some time in North Dakota and then found myself back in Minneapolis, working for CLA shortly thereafter college. Really got my start with CLA in 2012 with a manufacturing, distribution internship.

[00:01:52]

And then found myself back at CLA in 2013 with another summer internship, and then finally fulltime–As Dudley Ryan would say, I was a seasonal intern. But found my way back fulltime in 2014. And that’s where I really nestled into the manufacturing, distribution group.

[00:02:09]

John: So why accounting and finance? Why CPA?

[00:02:13]

Brendan: Yeah. It’s an interesting story, John. I actually really went up to North Dakota State to be a pharmacist.

[00:02:19]

John: A pharmacist?

[00:02:20]

Brendan: Yeah. So a little bit of a pivot from what a CPA does on a day-to-day. But at the end of the day, where I found my passion, when I was in high school, was helping people. And the easiest thing that I could really see was something that was frontline and center for me, my mom went through two bouts of cancer when I was growing up. And I saw the immense amount of drugs that were going into her body to combat this cancer.

And something, for me, was pharmacy seemed like a good place to go and help find proactive solutions for this. Move forward a little bit further into my time at CLA and I tried a round of Whole30.

[00:02:56]

John: Ah, very good. So we’re gonna probe that one a little bit more. Before we do that, I want to hear Eric’s story.

[00:03:03]

Eric: Yeah. So my story starts on the farm. I come from two farm families. My dad’s side was pork and grain. And my mom’s side was a small diary, but I was born in the south metro. So my connection was through my extended relatives. And I have a lot of memories of going down in the farm in August and baling hay, watch my grandfather milk the cows in the parlor.

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And there was just something that stuck with me as I grew up that ag is special. There’s just something about the farm.

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John: And it has its own language, bales of hay, milking parlor. I’m guessing many people in the sound of my voice have no idea what you’re talking about.

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Eric: No, no. No, they don’t. No.

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John: More about your career.

[00:03:50]

John: Along line with that is my dad was a controller at Agriliance, a cooperative here in Minnesota. My uncle is a CFO of a coop in Iowa. So there was a finance aspect. So I grew up with a family of accountants, a family of farmers. And when I was introduced to the firm in 2006 through summer experience, I connected with Cindy Scheid out of the New Ulm office at the time. And she was explaining what they do.

[00:04:17]

And at the time, the ag tax capital of the firm, they really were*. So I looked at it and said, “I can work in rural communities, serving farmers and aligning with my accounting or finance passion. This could be a great marriage.” So that’s where my relationship started. And I was hired on fulltime in 2008. And I’ve been in River Valley ever since.

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John: Yeah. Very good. So a little bit more about your career. So when did you choose ag, right out of the gate?

[00:04:44]

Eric: I wish it was that easy, John. No, it wasn’t. When I first started, my focus was more on the service line, which was tax. I almost touched every other industry besides ag or manufacturing until I think it was the first year manager.

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John: I understand, along the way, you weren’t real happy about that.

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Eric: Yeah. That’s a fair statement. So when you have an entrepreneurial itch, even at your three, four, five, when you’re not aligning your passion with what you’re doing day to day or who you’re serving, you feel anxiety, you feel disruption needs to happen to change ’cause you’re not where you should be.

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John: I can see on your face, which I have the benefit of seeing, that there was pain involved in that at that time. It wasn’t fun.

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Eric: No, it wasn’t. It was a grind. You felt like you were a cog in the system, grinding day in and day out.

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John: So how did you change it?

[00:05:45]

Eric: Well, at first, I thought, “I got to leave. This isn’t the place for me,” and looking outside of the firm. The culture wasn’t right. So I stayed. Even though I was in the grind, I stayed. And then they came to me and said, “Hey, would you like to serve in our ABC manufacturing team?” And I said, “You know what? I need a change. Absolutely, let’s do this.” And so I did. And the first client I went to was a pork farmer.

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John: Really? So the very first–

[00:06:13]

Eric: Very first one.

[00:06:15]

John: So first year manager, you’re five, six, ag, because someone took the time to invite you…

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Eric: Right.

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John: And draw you in. And then, of course, you found it. Was the passion born right then, right there?

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Eric: You know, it probably wasn’t at the very first start, but what I really enjoyed was the complexity. You know, people don’t think farming is complex. I can see it in your face. And you’re like, “No.”

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John: I grew up on a farm.

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Eric: But when you start talking about derivatives and commodity pricing and marketing, it is an incredibly complex industry. And I just found myself getting sucked in.

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John: Okay, I want to come back on that one. I want to know more. Brendan, let’s pick up your story. Yours was a much more focused story. From the outset, M&D embraced you and gave you some freedom. Tell us about those early years.

[00:07:10]

Brendan: Yeah, absolutely. I was lucky enough that the first individual that I met from CLA was Erik Skie. Can’t find a much more impressive manufacturing mind, in my opinion. So the very first interactions I had with CLA was with one of our best.

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And the passion that he was showing in that initial interview when I was in college, sitting there, just attracted me to the firm more than any kind of passionate feeling I’ve ever had. The next step was I got down to Minneapolis, and who is the second person I meet? Samantha Metcalf. So you can’t really meet two more passionate people within an industry.

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So I was really lucky with kind of how that all played out, but then it really came down to–you know, similar to Eric’s story, I think, I was working some tax, I was working some assurance, really trying to find my fit that first year. And I remember sitting in my cube one late night in March and Sam brought over a project. I didn’t have anything else going on at the time. I was a new staff. Work had slowed down. And it was a value add model, very brand new.

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Sam and Rob Tracy had developed this model. And I was able to get my first flair of manufacturing consulting. And that was when I knew this was the place for me.

[00:08:34]

John: So by my math, you’ve been with the firm, discounting, of course, the internships, just shy of six years. Why food and beverage? Why so early, in some of our people’s minds, have you selected this?

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Brendan: Yeah. This concept of deep industry specialization was always something that was really exciting to me. So that was something that was always kind of a key pillar on our M&D team. I was sitting in a growth network meeting here in Minneapolis, probably the first or second one that I was ever at, every invited to. So this was when I was a senior. And the main thing I kept hearing was, “We’re having trouble finding people that want to step up and lead a market segment.”

[00:09:12]

And I said, “Hey, this is a great opportunity to get some leadership experience.” And I kind of ticked on the list and I said, “Hey, I know food. I worked for Cargill,” right? One of the largest food companies in the world. So I knew that world a little bit. And then I started doing a little research. So I ran some starter reports, found out that, “Okay, CLA has an immense amount of food and beverage clients. However, there’s not one single person that solely focuses on this.”

[00:09:42]

So we are serving the market but not in the most efficient and effective way.

[00:09:47]

John: But there’s deeper passion to that, Brendan…

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Brendan: Absolutely.

[00:09:50]

John: That you’ve shared with me in the past.

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Brendan: Yeah.

[00:09:53]

John: A little deeper than just opportunity, what is that?

[00:09:56]

Brendan: Yeah. So it really comes down to probably the first 20 years of my life. I grew up on the Schwan’s man, right? The Schwan’s man came once a week. So the freezer was full of all the food that we ate on a daily basis.

[00:10:09]

John: Processed food?

[00:10:10]

Brendan: Processed, very processed. But it was great stuff. Went to college, lived pretty much the same lifestyle, probably even more unhealthy than I was growing up. And then when I got to CLA, there was kind of this movement of a lot of the new folks that I was working with. It was this concept of, “Okay, let’s be really holistic with our food.”

[00:10:30]

At the same time, you had way more opportunities in terms of Whole Foods starting to pop up, Hy-Vees starting to pop up more than your Cub Foods and Sam’s Club frozen foods sections really becoming an alternative option in the twin cities. With all of this, I am thinking about kind of this industry side on one side of my brain and then my personal life on the other side of my brain.

[00:10:53]

And really, what I saw was, “Okay, I’m gonna do this round of Whole30,” which opened my eyes to foods that I would never even imagine touching in the first 25 years of my life. What really happened was a life-changing experience to me.

[00:11:08]

And that was feeling energized without 15 cups of coffee, feeling better without taking any sort of supplements, and really being able to fully be the best person I can be via eating the proper food. And, to me, that was where I was able to connect my personal life with what I could do at CLA and really get all-in on a community within the industry.

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John: Ah, very good. So it became a passion.

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Brendan: Absolutely.

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John: Eric, you teased us by saying “I went deep” because it became a bit of a passion, it was interesting, it was complex, it was easy to demonstrate value perhaps. Tell us more about this going deep because you needed to become an expert and you figured out how to do that.

[00:12:00]

Eric: Yeah. And I didn’t need to be an expert. I needed to be an expert very quickly ’cause what I found out in my conversations with those clients, I couldn’t participate in them ’cause the questions they asked were so detailed. They wanted an advisor. And I could not be that advisor without diving deep. So what I did, John, is I did a 28-day binge on everything pork.

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John: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, 28-day binge, everything pork. Even what you ate?

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Eric: Not to the extent of Brendan’s what I eat, no, no. But when you look at a pork producer, it’s genetics, okay? So what is genetics, what’s the difference in different breeds, how do they raise the pigs, what do they use, what’s their inputs, how do they market, what’s their risk management. And then you have to go all the way to the meat side.

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I mean, let’s face it. If there’s no demand, right, for their product, it affects everything. It’s a giant chain.

[00:13:01]

John: So this 28-day binge was learning, literally, going to college, if you will, on the pork industry.

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Eric: Absolutely.

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John: How did you do that?

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Eric: It was tough. I just sat down and said, “If I’m gonna serve these clients and align my passion for ag with what’s in front of me, I need to do this.”

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John: Where did you find the information?

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Eric: It was Pig Site, USDA, anything that was out on the web that was legitimate.

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John: So your best friend became Google.

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Eric: Yeah, that’s a good way to say it. It was even diving into tax and assurance. There are certain aspects of assurance–or I should say accounting standards specific to ag, tax, farm tax is very different than manufacturing service. It was everything. It was all encompassing.

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John: So what did you do with the information?

[00:13:45]

Eric: I created what I call Pigs 101. It’s a 45 to 50 page documents that lays it out from the history of pork production in the US all the way to today. And it also includes areas of concentration in the United States, so Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, where is it located, who’s the top 40 pork producers. I mean, it’s as good as I could have done at that point of putting together.

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And I say, “John, here’s everything you need to know about pork.” And you can read those 50 pages.

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John: So beyond yourself, how do you use this? Behind your own knowledge, how do you use this?

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Eric: I ask my team to read it before we go out there, before we start engaging that client, whether it’s tax or assurance and say, “All right, here is the vernacular.”

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John: I do recall you mentioning you used some of the framing for a presentation that you have done to the industry.

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Eric: Yeah, I have. So along with that knowledge, if you’re gonna get up in front of those prospects, of your clients, you got to be able to walk the walk before you talk the talk. And so doing that deep dive allowed me to get in front of those clients and prove that I know the pain they’re going through. Before*, they had to tell me.

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John: So what have been the results? So you did this work. You went to school, did the 28-day binge, if you will, I assume you’ve updated this.

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Eric: Constantly. Oh, yeah.

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John: Constantly updating, okay, because it’s just a growing source of resources. You share it with the team members.

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Eric: Yeah.

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John: You expect your team members to learn it with you.

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Eric: Yeah.

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John: What have been the results?

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Eric: To me, the results are the value the clients see in us is more than just compliance now. I get calls from some of our largest pork producers almost weekly. And our discussion is not about accounting and tax, it’s about what we see in the industry. Two weeks ago, if you were to ask me where the pork industry was, I would say, it was a decimated market. There’s too much supply.

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But now we’ve got this opportunity in China with African swine fever, and this is no joke, the cash price for pork was about 50 bucks 100* weight. And within one week, now the futures price is over 100. It doubled in a week. And so what’s the first thing that clients do? They call me, “Hey, have you seen this?” I said, “Yeah, absolutely.”

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I didn’t have to look anything up. Yeah, 50 million tons of pork was sold in China in a week. I mean, so when you’re there with them in the weeds and seeing what they’re seeing, your conversations is that much more important.

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John: How has that translated in business development or growth opportunities?

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Eric: The deeper you can dive into the industry, the easier those opportunities come. If you have raving fans, they’re gonna introduce you to people. So for instance, that very first client that I mentioned, my first time in ag, he called me up and said, “Hey, I know some guy on Ohio, they’re looking for someone to help with their audit and tax needs, and I recommended you.” I didn’t have to ask.

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They knew that because I knew the industry that I could provide something for them that their current provider was not. And that happens more often than not.

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John: That’s terrific. So I know you’ve started building your team, how is that going?

[00:16:58]

Eric: Yes. I’m very fortunate that the River Valley Region lies in one of the more heavily populated pork areas in the country. And there’s two other individuals who are drivers just like I am, Jim Marzolf and Jim Heilman. So that’s our core team. And we’ve identified a few more. We actually just recently hired someone from Hormel. So her knowledge is incredible from the meat side. So it is growing. It’s building, expanding.

[00:17:27]

And the more we come together, the more we find that there is so much more ahead of us. Now my vision, John, is that we create something like this in other pockets across the country. I’m thinking Raleigh, I’m thinking Toledo, Illinois offices, West Des Moines. I mean, to me, it’s the low-hanging fruit.

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If there’s somebody out there in those offices that have an entrepreneurial itch and they have a passion for AG, I want to come alongside them. That’s my vision of where this could go.

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John: Yeah, it’s terrific. So, Brendan, we’re sitting here on the end of an opportunity season. I chanced to manifest some of what you’ve been striving. I know you’ve had a chance to begin to get focused on those food and beverage clients that the firm serves. Tell us a little bit about what we do that’s unique or different.

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Brendan: Certainly. It’s a great question, John. And really, the unique thing that CLA brings to the table when it comes to food and beverage is very similar to what Eric was mentioning in the sense of we are a little bit different than what the market is used to seeing out there. They’re really used to the CPAs coming in to various industry events and really trying to sell tax and audit work.

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What we do is we’re a little bit different in a sense of we’re not just a logo on a table or on a screen or anything at these industry events, but we are really getting to know the people there, understanding what their pain points are and sharing that common dream and common passion for the industry. And one of the big things that’s going on in the industry right now is this concept of sustainability.

[00:19:15]

The generation that is really leading this food revolution is also a very entrepreneurial generation. So what you’re seeing, and the first movers on this were the craft breweries. So talked to Tim Irvin down in our Oak Brook office. He’s really seen this on the craft brewery side for, you know, the last five to ten years here.

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Now what we’re starting to see in a lot of these developed markets, think Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, L.A., you’re starting to see these micro-units or ecosystems of innovation and kind of an ecosystem of local food. Now what does that mean? It’s kind of exactly how I got my start within food is I’m used to the large CPG companies owning the grocery store, right?

[00:20:00]

So you go into a grocery store, you kind of walk around, you get everything in the freezer aisle. You go to the middle, you kind of get the other processed and packaged foods. What I always used to skip out on was the fresh produce and the local type food ’cause it was a little bit more expensive, right? So growing up in the Minneapolis suburbs, my parents, anyway, were a little bit more frugal with where the money was going. And now what we’re seeing is the opportunity to get into a Whole Foods and the prices have come down.

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It’s now just as equally important to get into that grocery store and buy that local food because you know where it came from, you know the farm. You can trace it back to the farm that it came from, you can trace it back to that actual producer. And that means something to this new generation.

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John: Yeah, I think that’s important. Supply chain is of critical importance. And that draws us into all kinds of concepts around blockchain and tagging and monitoring and so forth. Guys, this is a great conversation. And frankly, I could continue all day.

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But I want to close it with one final question if I can. And it’s really targeted to the people who are listening right now. I’m guessing there are some that are extremely motivated by your comments. They’re saying, “I could do that.”

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And some that are intimidated ’cause the two of you are highly motivated and it might feel a bit intimidating, especially when I have a big book of business and they’re wondering, “What does this mean really for my career, especially if I’ve historically had a more service orientation?” So what bit of advice do you have for the people of the firm as they’re looking at the opportunities that are before them?

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They’re considering the requests of the firm and this strategic advantage of industry specialization, our desire to bring a broader perspective to the client to drive the seamless experience. What advice do you have?

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Eric: John, I would say, there’s always an element of fear of the unknown, what I would say, don’t succumb to the fear, push through it. Align your passions with what you want out of your career, who you want to serve ’cause, from that point, you have a great career.

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If you can align your passions, you have an inspiring career that other people are gonna look at and say, “I want what that person has.”

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Brendan: Yeah. I would echo a very similar thing to Eric there. I think the biggest thing that I would say when we’re aligning our passions is find that thing that you lose track of time doing, find that area that you don’t want to put down. For me, you touched on a little bit, John, over the last two years, the two things that have fascinated me, and I kind of took two approaches, I downloaded the Robinhood app, I don’t know if you’ve heard of that one or not, but essentially micro-investing.

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But I invested in the top CPG companies that I know of. That got me really interested and following current trends in the industry and the second was blockchain. So with all of that, those are the things that I couldn’t stop reading about, I couldn’t stop myself from learning about. And then you’re able to take those passions, those areas that you can’t put down, and put that towards your career. And that’s how you can really live that inspired career.

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John: Yeah. Fabulous. Those are great stories, guys. And they’re stories that are just beginning because both of you are staring forward at tremendous opportunity and a great chance to impact the people around you, your families, frankly, industries.

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CLA family, remember, industry specialization is not about joining a group. It’s not about a designation. It’s not simply about complying with a request from the firm. It is about pursuing your passion. It is about delivering something unique and different to the client. It is about becoming an expert in our client’s business.

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It is about creating opportunities for those clients, for our people, for yourself, and, of course, for those industry communities in which we spend our time. Thank you, Brendan. Thank you, Eric. And thank you, CLA family, for listening to this edition of Industry Forward.

Industry Forward: Financial institutions Charlie Cameron and Josh Juergensen Mar 26, 2019

Charlie and Josh have taken two very different career journeys in the FI industry, but they agree passionately on this: an entrepreneurial approach to serving banks and credit unions is what sets CLA apart. Together they lead our FI practice, which now boasts $70M in revenue, more than 250 staff members, and roughly 1,500 clients. Let their stories of grit and success inspire your own industry specialization path.

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John: Welcome CLA family to this podcast designed to tell the stories behind the CLA promise. I’m John Langan, chief industry officer for our regulated industries. We create opportunities when we live our culture as entrepreneurs, owners, and leaders. At the center of the CLA promise is our why: to create opportunities. Behind the CLA are a set of core beliefs. One of them is helping verse selling: A belief that specialization enables us to focus less on ourselves and our practice service specialty and more on our clients’ needs and opportunities.

[00:01:02]

As we get to know our clients better and help them more it will in fact result in growth for CLA. That’s industry specialization at CLA. Industry specialization equals growth along with better quality, profitability, and more inspired careers. But how do you get started? And how do you build a succession plan for yourself? To answer those questions, we’ve invited two industry specialists, financial institutions leaders MPI Charlie Cameron from our St. Louis office and Josh Juergensen, an FI principal in the Minneapolis office.

[00:01:39]

Charlie and Josh, welcome. You represent two ends of the industry journey, so exploring it from both of your perspectives will provide real insight to our audience. Let’s start with your personal stories. How long have you been with the firm? Tell us about your career and what you have that brought you to this place. And, Charlie, let’s start with you.

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Charlie: Thanks, John. I’m in my eighth year now with CLA. I actually merged my legacy firm in at the beginning of 2012 when we first began operating at CLA. After spending a few years with the Big Four at the beginning of my career, I worked for 12 years for a regional bank holding company in St. Louis. After that bank was sold, I purchased a small niche bank consulting firm and ran it for 12 years. By hiring some good people, many of which are still with us today, we were able to grow consistently and establish a good reputation in the marketplace.

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In 2017, I began transitioning into my current role FI. Our FI practice now stretches across the country, as totally revenue approximately $70 million, and consists of about 250 total staff members.

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John: And I’ll bet as you started in this industry you had no idea you’d be sitting on top of revenue of that size.

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Charlie: Absolutely no idea. It’s been a great ride.

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John: So, Josh, tell us about your story.

[00:03:05]

Josh: Thanks, John. I followed the more traditional career path starting right out of college coming to CLA back in 2007, currently in my 13th business season. By dumb luck, I happened to be placed in the financial institutions practice and here we are today. It’s been a crazy ride since 2007 coming right out of college into the largest economic crisis of–at least in my lifetime working with community banks.

[00:03:26]

I just assumed that every board around a community meeting consisted of discussions running, raiding off a number of bad loans or discussions regulators closing banks. Thankfully that’s not the case and here we are today with, like Charlie said, a very large and successful FI practice.

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John: So you’ve had baptism by fire through the 2008 financial crisis.

[00:03:43]

Josh: Yes, definitely.

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John: So you’ve both taken interesting journeys to get where you are today. And so, Charlie, what are some of the key decisions that you’ve had to make along the way, both planned and unplanned, as you moved along your desired career path.

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Charlie: Well, John, I would say first that just being entrepreneurial back when I purchased my legacy firm and then, after being a sole owner for 12 years, making the decision to join what would become CLA. After being a sole owner, I knew that we had more growth potential, but that we needed the resources of a larger firm to continue that growth and to offer better long-term career opportunities to our people.

[00:04:27]

Then in 2017 accepting the leadership role at FI that I serve in today and, you know, in short I accepted that role because I believed in this strategic platform of our firm, and I knew that the key to FI could continue to be successful was just executing on the core principals of that strategic platform.

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John: So, Josh, Charlie had his own practice and brought it in and he had all the experiences that went along with that. You said you took the more traditional route right out of school coming into what has become a very large firm. How do you build off of the experiences you’ve had but also some of the ones you haven’t to sort of round out your experience as you try to build your career.

[00:05:11]

Josh: Yeah, I’ve been very fortunate. From the standpoint of when I started, this was already an established financial institution practice. Learning from people like Terry Yanger and Jerry Ferachelly and Neil Falken and now Charlie and others, they played a big role in developing what we have here today, but now it’s on myself and a number of other younger leaders in our FI practice to continue the momentum that they’ve started and to continue to allow us to grow.

[00:05:34]

We have over 1,500 financial institution clients across the country that, when we walk into many of those institutions, they know who we are just by name recognition alone. That wasn’t necessarily the case when I started back in 2007. At the end of the day, it comes down to serving our clients and giving them the opportunities with our support. For me, it’s always been very important to have that entrepreneurial mindset and “how can we help our clients.”

[00:05:56]

And that’s one thing that I’ve learned over the years from Charlie and others can continue doing that as we go forward in the future.

[00:06:02]

John: And what I can hear in your voice is the energy and the passion behind doing that, and I think that’s probably a big part of being able to be hungry, to have that business even though you weren’t in a position where you had to build the initial firm. So, Charlie, as important as industry specialization is and a key strategic priority of the firm, the service mix, the services that we bring to those clients to become a true professional services firm are equally as important.

[00:06:31]

So talk to me about how you looked to leaders like Josh to employ those disciplines in terms of building a more holistic platform.

[00:06:46]

Charlie: Yeah, John, our service mix is clearly shifting. Today, insurance and tax make up already less than half of our FI revenue and that percentage continues to decline. Due to industry consolidation and other factors, we know that achieving 7% growth in the insurance area is going to be difficult. Our industry greatest opportunities lie in the consulting and outsourcing areas. So executing on seamless integration is really paramount to our FI practice.

[00:07:17]

So we’ve asked young leaders like Josh and others to connect in a greater way with our key service side leaders within their growth networks to plan, set strategy, and go to the market as one coordinated team, one firm.

[00:07:33]

John: So, Charlie, you said it’s going to be difficult to get 7% organic growth through the insurance and tax compliant services, but if we’re honest, it’s almost impossible.

[00:07:43]

Charlie: That’s exactly right, and our recent history shows that, John.

[00:07:46]

John: Right. So, Josh, your service concentration at this point is audit. How do you approach clients, prospects, and financial institution centers of influence to incorporate a more holistic approach to our service platform?

[00:08:01]

Josh: Yeah, John, the seamless integration of all those services is something that’s got to be very important to us. For me, personally, it’s all about relationship building. I spend a lot of my time recruiting on campus with a lot of students, and we frequently get the question “what do I enjoy most about my job?” And for me, it’s working with all the clients that we have. If you go through my sent items box, there’s a lot of clients that I’m addressing as “hey buddy” or “good to see you again,” things like that where we’ve got a much closer relationship than just as a client.

[00:08:28]

I don’t want to be viewed as their auditor or as their tax preparer. For me, it’s very important that they view us as their strategic partner. We want to be that first person that they call any time that they’ve got a question from a financial standpoint surrounding their business because we are working with those key decision makers. When I’m looking at financial institutions specifically, many of our clients–at least in the community bank inside–they are the majority shareholder.

[00:08:51]

They are the owner of the bank, and we’re working directly with them to help them manage the largest financial asset that they have. So I don’t want to be that tax preparer or that auditor. I want to be that first person that they look at as a strategic partner to help the success of their organization into the future.

[00:09:05]

John: So, Charlie, we’re throwing a lot at young leaders like Josh that we didn’t really have to do as we came up. We were very concentrated in our service areas. So what is some of the advice that you might have to Josh and other young leaders about how they sort of block out the noise and stay focused on the key areas because there’s so many things you could be doing but trying to figure out where you should put your priorities in a very busy world can be difficult.

[00:09:35]

Charlie: Yeah, that’s a great question, John, because it’s a fairly frequent topic and discussion with our young leaders. Our leaders all naturally get involved in a variety of initiatives, internally and externally. But there’s an old saying that if everything is a priority, then you don’t have any priorities. So we all have to deal with those challenges, but I believe that’s it’s really important that we stay focused on the why and the how of our firm.

[00:10:01]

When you break it down, our ability to bring opportunities to our people and our communities really starts with delivering first-class service to our clients and creating opportunities for our clients. And, of course, we do that by knowing and helping our clients through deep industry specialization.

[00:10:20]

So my advice to our young leaders is that, you know, our activities need to be centered around the why and the how for our firm, and if we keep that focus and develop our daily, weekly priorities, et cetera, around that focus, I think that can lead you to a successful career at CLA.

[00:10:39]

John: Absolutely and, Josh, I had always that financial institution professionals wanted to be with Big Four firms serving publically-held clients. Why did you choose to build your FI career at CLA and where our profile client is typically not public and decidedly smaller?

[00:10:58]

Josh: Yeah, John, when I started with CLA back in 2007, we didn’t have name recognition to go out and get in front a lot of those larger institutions. Back when I started in ’07, we had about 800 or so employees across the entire firm, and now we have more than that in just the Minneapolis office alone. So as we’ve grown the number of opportunities we’ve had in front of those larger institutions has presented itself more frequently than it has. So I grew up on the community banking side.

[00:11:21]

Now that being said, I really do enjoy the fact of working directly with the owners, like I mentioned before. You’re working with those key decision makers to really have an impact and an influence on where their organization is going. To put into perspective when I started back in 2007, our average bank size was probably around $250 million in assets or so. As I look to where we’re at today, we’re probably around a billion dollars in average asset size for many of our audit clients that we have today.

[00:11:45]

And that number is only going to increase. We’ve got a stated initiative within financial institutions that we’re going to specifically target with larger institutions and get in front of those more often, really driving home the outsourcing opportunities and the consulting opportunities that Charlie mentioned. But I really have enjoyed the smaller institutions because you can really get your arms around that organization and really capitalize on all the different service lines we have to offer to our clients.

[00:12:11]

John: And while our profile client size is getting larger, I think it is fair to say that there’s just more of them, and they typically are underserved. Is that correct?

[00:12:20]

Josh: 100% correct. There’s not a lot of other firms that are out there specifically connecting with community banks. For example, we have spent a number of years–I believe it’s over 20 years now–serving with Independent Community Bank of America, the largest trade association for community banks, and they have been a great referral source for us and a great revenue generator for us as well over the years.

[00:12:40]

John: That’s great. Yeah, I like to say that, in a very big organization that has great controls and full complementive resources, all they’re really doing is buying our letterhead, and that’s not very fulfilling. But these smaller midsize and growing-in-size clients have more need and that provides more opportunity for them and for us. So, Charlie, specifically, what are some of the services that you’re trying to drive through FI?

[00:13:08]

Charlie: There are many, John. We really do have a very broad array of consultian outsourcing services that FI delivers. Probably the easiest way to describe that menu is just to think about the different risk areas of our clients, and most of those risk areas we’re delivering on a variety of services. So those areas would include regulatory compliance, credit risk management services, information systems, security, strategic services, et cetera.

[00:13:37]

You know, John, now we have approximately 100 FI staff members that specialize outside the traditional audit tax areas. That’s about 40% of our FI staff. So I’m really excited about the career opportunities that we are creating for our people in these consulting and outsourcing service lines.

[00:13:59]

John: That’s great, Charlie. Josh, FI had double digit growth in 2018. Congratulations to both of you for that. But it brings its own challenges. So what are you and the FI industry group doing to elevate and accelerate the careers of the FI professionals and build a practice base on effective client transitions and succession, which I know is critical to building a successful legacy practice?

[00:14:25]

Josh: Like many other industries, I would have to assume, we do have a challenge with succession planning within FI as we look to our existing leadership group. We’ve had a number of retirements over the last couple of years, and we’ll have a number more as we go into the next three to five years.

[00:14:38]

Charlie and the strategic leadership committee of FI have done a great job of giving myself and a number of other younger leaders within the practice the opportunity to lead various committees and get involved as much as we would like to be involved in a number of things across the group. As an example, Charlie has asked me to lead the FI learning and career development committees.

[00:14:57]

I’m also working with David Heneke, another partner out of our St. Cloud office, to lead our financial service innovation committee, where we really try to take a look at some of the things that are going be disrupting the financial institutions industry to go forward.

[00:15:09]

We’re also putting emphasis on educating many of our younger and up-and-coming leaders in the organization as well. I’m talking about people that are in the three to four to five to six year range, giving them opportunities to try to educate them about what all we do because if they’re not educated about what we does as a firm, it’s going to be tough for them to create opportunities for both themselves and their clients.

[00:15:27]

So we’re really trying to be proactive in that and giving those people that have stepped up and set themselves apart, giving them an opportunity to grow their career at the pace that they want to.

[00:15:36]

John: Charlie, Josh mentioned earlier about thought leadership and the importance of that and building yourself as an industry professional, making yourself a “famous person.” In FI, how do you go about challenging your leaders and giving them that opportunity to become that famous person?

[00:15:54]

Charlie: Okay. Well, first I would say, establishing yourself as an industry expert is becoming increasingly important for our young leaders. We’ve already talked, John, that the insurance opportunities in the marketplace due to industry consolidation are declining overall. So I believe that if you’re a relationship leader in FI, becoming that strategic advisor for your clients is the key to opening the door to execution of seamless.

[00:16:21]

So providing thought leadership is a big part of becoming a recognized industry expert. You know, that can look different for different leaders. We don’t necessarily dictate approach, but we certainly emphasize to all of our young leaders getting involved in thought leadership.

[00:16:38]

John: And that thought leadership, I assume, would be around industry associations, articles, white papers, speaking, and doing, I guess, in a way with your non-charge hours so that you can balance your life at the same time.

[00:16:53]

Charlie: Absolutely and one of the tools that some of our folks have really done a great job of developing is a blog for FI.

[00:17:01]

John: Yeah. Yeah, congratulations on that. So, Josh, one of the things that comes up a lot with all the things that get thrown at us on a daily basis is how do we stay on top of our business acumen? You know, the charge it, bill it, collect it, the really nuts and bolts of this business. As a young leader with all that you have coming at you, how do you and your peers kind of look at that and make sure that you’re covering that expectation?

[00:17:27]

Josh: John, the beauty of working with financial institutions, the collective part is generally pretty easy ’cause if there’s one thing that banks and credit unions have is money. So, generally speaking, collecting our invoices is usually not an issue for us. But from a charging standpoint, I have been very proud with how our group has adopted the daily time reporting mentality. When I grew up, that wasn’t necessarily the case, the expectation that you had to do that on a daily basis.

[00:17:49]

And as we’ve transitioned into that, I’ve been very proud of how our group, by and large, has adopted this. We do have frequent conversations about the importance of working efficiently and charging for what you do. By no means do we ever want anybody eating their time, but we want to make sure that when extra time is necessary that we’re billing it appropriately and whenever that is warranted. From a billing standpoint, we made a concerted effort though over the last 6 to 12 months, John, of really trying to get some of our senior associates involved with billing.

[00:18:15]

I think that does a great job of getting them a better understanding of the business side of what we do, and it also helps give those individuals a little more insight of the importance of efficiency because when you’re in there actually working on creating the invoice and allocating the whip as needed, when we’re having to write off time it really puts into prospective the importance of working efficiently and really gets them up to speed quickly on why we do continue to talk about being efficient and recording our time in as much detail as we possibly can.

[00:18:42]

So I think that’s really kind of a good summary of where we’re at with this and I’ve been really happy with how people have stepped up and adopted some of the mindset that we have had surrounding charge it, bill it, and collect it.

[00:18:52]

John: Yeah, well we’d love to get you to help us get to a tipping point on the daily time entry and “don’t write off my time” mentality. So, Charlie, I’m going to give you the last question, which is really, as you get to the top of the stretch in terms of your career, what does success look like?

[00:19:12]

Charlie: Well, John, I would say that the goal is to establish the resources and develop the young leadership within our growth networks, so that we can consistently execute on the market opportunities that lie in those regions. And, although we are in an industry of disruption, I’m a big believer that disruption and innovation needs opportunity. So like many of our other industry practices at CLA, FI has become large enough now that we really are dependent upon strong growth network leadership.

[00:19:48]

So I believe that my job for my remaining years at CLA and really the job of our other FI strategic leaders is to create strong growth networks, to develop leadership within those growth networks and the resources that they need so their position to identify, create, and execute on opportunities. And, John, if I can, let me just say that I’m confident that we can make that happen because I think our greatest strength in FI is our young leaders.

[00:20:20]

We have one of them today in Josh Juergensen, but it’s terrific to see the type of young talent that we have in our FI practice.

[00:20:28]

John: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. It’s been quite a journey for both of you and a testament to creating opportunities with inspired careers, industry specialization, and the entirety of the CLA promise being realized in FI. So thank you both for joining us today.

[00:20:45]

Josh: Thank you, John.

[00:20:46]

Charlie: Thanks, John.

Carrying the CLA Promise Forward Mar 06, 2019

CEO Denny Schleper reaches out to our CLA family to recognize everyone during these busy times and give special thanks to those carrying the CLA Promise forward.

Music up

Man: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:14]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny, coming to you at the beginning of March, really in the heart of opportunity season. I hope that all of you are finding those opportunities for yourselves and helping you build those inspired careers. And I also hope that we’re finding those wonderful opportunities for our clients as well. I am going to be very brief today. I know many of us are so very, very busy providing these opportunities and creating them.

[00:00:42]

I just wanted to maybe remind all of us that it’s also a great time of year to really give thanks to all those people around us that are working so hard helping — carrying the CLA promise forward. And if you could take just a few seconds each and every day to thank those people, it does mean a tremendous amount to all of us this time of year. Also, there’s ways to do this, like Workday — Workday app, if you have it on your phones, just very quickly and easily to jump on that, give feedback, give recognition to those, again, around you.

[00:01:19]

If I could also ask to keep our eyes and ears open to those around us that are really looking for help and make sure that we’re providing the help to them wherever it is needed. Also, for those of you needing that help, please don’t hide. Make sure that you raise your hand. Make sure that you get to people, asking for that help that you need. All of us in the CLA family will operate that way together and I’m confident that, together, we can get through this very busy time.

[00:01:51]

Things are off to a very good start in 2019. Again, thanks to everyone in the CLA family working so hard. So I’m recognizing all of you, I’m thanking all of you for the tremendous efforts that are being put forth. Thank you so very much on behalf of myself, the executive team, the leadership advisory team, and the board of directors.

[00:02:15]

Please keep it going through this opportunity season and, once again, reach out for help and make sure, if you’re being asked, that we respond as well as we possibly can to help all of us in the CLA family. Hang in there and have a good rest of the opportunity season.

Thank you.

Music out

Industry Forward: Sam Metcalf’s Passion for M&D Feb 19, 2019

Sam Metcalf, Managing Principal of Industry, has built an impressive career on a lifetime passion for the M&D industry. She explains how market segments are screaming for highly specialized professionals, and she has some profoundly helpful insights for those who want to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities this offers. One of her most fascinating tips? Be inquisitive and don’t hold back any of your questions.

[00:00:04]

Narrator: John Richter takes a moment to catch up with Sam Metcalf who’s built an impressive career on a lifetime passion for the M&D industry. She explains the need for highly specialized professionals, and shares her helpful insights for those who want to take advantage of new and exciting opportunities. One tip? Be inquisitive… ask questions. Industry Forward starts now .

Music up…

[00:00:36]

John: Hello, CLA family. Welcome to the Industry Forward podcast, the podcast designed to tell you the stories behind the CLA promise and the careers that have been inspired because of industry specialization. We create opportunities when we live the CLA culture and fulfill the CLA promise.

[00:00:55]

We act as leaders, owners, entrepreneurs. At the center of this CLA promise is our purpose, our why: to create opportunities, to wake up each morning and ask ourselves, for whom will we create an opportunity today? If we did that, if we act in accordance with that belief, it would be a different firm. Imagine a firm where every morning, every person wakes up asking themselves, “Who am I going to create opportunities for today?”

[00:01:24]

Well, today, we’re going to hear about an individual who had a multitude of opportunities created, mostly through the industry of manufacturing and distribution. Samantha Metcalf, welcome to the microphone. Would you tell us a little bit about your career?

[00:01:41]

Sam: Sure. Well, I don’t know if you know this, but I came from Cleveland, Minnesota, population 600 people. Graduated with 40 kids in my class and was from a very rural community. My dad was the sales director of a manufacturing and distribution company. They manufactured passenger elevators, and so I grew up following my dad around, riding on top of elevators, meeting individuals on the manufacturing floor.

My first job was babysitting the owner’s kids, and then I transitioned into working for the manufacturing company. I ran parts. I drove these very large vehicles all over the state of Minnesota and Iowa delivering manufactured parts to the customers.

[00:02:24]

John: I’m trying to imagine Sam Metcalf driving a big truck, but let’s go with it.

[00:02:30]

Sam: It was dangerous, let’s just put it that way. So, it was fun. It was great. But it gave me a passion for the industry; it gave me a passion for the people. And so I went to college, went to St. Mary’s University and got an accounting degree. And mainly, that was because my mom was an accountant, and not knowing exactly what I wanted to do, I thought, you know, she was very good at her job; I would follow in her footsteps.

[00:02:53]

So, started with a small public accounting firm. And I did a bit of everything. I served non-profits, I did 1099s, I did manufacturing companies. And I found that I was losing passion for what I was doing, and I really missed the manufacturing and distribution environment. So I had a choice to make: I was either going to leave public accounting and go work for a manufacturing company in their finance department, or I was going to go find a firm that I could really focus on manufacturing.

[00:03:25]

And it happened to be right around that timeframe, I happened to be at a networking event and met two individuals from CLA within the manufacturing and distribution group. That was–that was pretty good luck. So, met Eric Skie and Brent Terharr, and their passion and energy for the industry gave me the bug. And I actually reached out to them and asked them if I could join CLA about six months later.

[00:03:50]

John: Oh, you did. So, a networking event and found their story inspiring. What was inspiring or intriguing to you?

[00:03:59]

Sam: What was so special to me with those two individuals is one, again, if you know those individuals, very high-energy. A lot of passion for what they do. But in observing them, because they were close to our booth–we were set up in booths–but what I noticed about them was, they were having very different conversations with the business owners that they were talking to.

It wasn’t about audit or tax or the compliance work. They were actually talking about the business. And again, it just–it connected with me, and it was something that I wanted to do. It just–it was like a lightbulb going off, if that makes sense.

[00:04:32]

John: Ah, very good. So you joined CLA.

[00:04:35]

Sam: I did.

[00:04:36]

John: This was how many years ago?

[00:04:37]

Sam: I’ve been with CLA for about 13 years, a little over 13 years.

[00:04:41]

John: Yeah, fantastic. And you started working on all kinds of enterprises?

[00:04:47]

Sam: I really got to focus on manufacturing companies, and I primarily did insurance and tax work. So I started out as a generalist within our manufacturing and distribution team. The unique opportunity I got, though, was when I first started in Minneapolis, there wasn’t a lot of work for me to do, and so I was able to spend time in Philadelphia working for that manufacturing and distribution group, helping them serve clients.

[00:05:10]

John: Mm, so your career at CLA was really quite focused in the manufacturing realm.

[00:05:16]

Sam: Absolutely.

[00:05:16]

John: Was there any particular segment of the industry that you spent more time than others?

[00:05:20]

Sam: You know, Minneapolis has a focus on some market segments just based on what the client base looks like. I really focused on precision metal forming and machining. Metal forming, bending, and printing–those were really the market segments that I focused on. But at that point in time, I wouldn’t say that I had a focus.

[00:05:36]

John: Mm. And when you joined us, you were at what–in what role? You were a–

[00:05:44]

Sam: I was a senior.

[00:05:45]

John: Okay, a senior…

[00:05:47]

Sam: Yup, yup.

[00:05:10]

John: When you joined us. Okay, so take us forward now. When did you become a principal with CLA?

[00:05:16]

Sam: Oh, jeez. I became a principal probably four, five years ago–six, I don’t know. Time flies.

[00:05:22]

John: Yeah, I think it was further [indistinct] than that.

[00:05:23]

Sam: Was it?!

[00:05:23]

John: Yeah, but that’s okay.

[00:05:24]

Sam: I lose track of time. But yeah, I became a principal, but I would tell you the journey to get there was an absolute blast, and I think, you know, I changed–I changed paths many times to get where I was today. I woke up knowing that I wanted to serve manufacturing clients, but I–it took me a while to figure out in which way I wanted to serve them, if that makes sense.

[00:05:46]

John: Terrific. So can we–today you serve as the managing principal of our manufacturing and distribution group, and you’ve been in that role for just shy of two years.

[00:05:55]

Sam: Yep.

[00:05:56]

John: And during the period of time, you learned a great deal of lessons. Before we probe those, can you describe for us, at a high level, what is manufacturing and distribution at CLA?

[00:06:07]

Sam: At CLA. Well, manufacturing and distribution at CLA–we have 7,[000 manufacturing clients across the country in all different types of segments. We serve privately-held businesses. Just a fun fact about U.S. manufacturing: there’s about 252,[000 manufacturing companies across the country. All but 4,[000 have less than 3[00 employees. And three quarters of that, John, has less than 20.

[00:06:36]

So we have 7,[000 clients in CLA, but we have about 248,[000 clients that we have the opportunity to meet and connect with in the marketplace. So it’s a tremendous opportunity.

[00:06:49]

John: So if my math is anywhere close, we have about a 3% market share of manufacturers in the United States.

[00:06:56]

Sam: Yes.

[00:06:57]

John: And the vast majority of manufacturers in the United States fall into our sweet spot…

[00:07:02]

Sam: Absolutely.

[00:07:02]

John: Of a hundred or employees.

[00:07:05]

Sam: Absolutely. Privately held.

[00:07:06]

John: And they’re owned by private industry.

[00:07:09]

Sam: Yes.

[00:07:10]

John: So some of them are family-owned. Many of them now are private equity owned. But the point is, they’re right in our sweet spot.

[00:07:18]

Sam: Absolutely.

[00:07:18]

John: So, what’s the opportunity? Does it go beyond that? It’s just lots of clients?

[00:07:22]

Sam: No, I mean, I think the real opportunity–the market’s changing, John. And I think–and this has been the history of CLA within our industry specialization, is, you know, traditionally we really focused from a community perspective with the manufacturing and distribution. But expectations are changing. The markets are changing. Our clients’ needs are changing. And so, they expect us to have a higher level of specialization.

[00:07:46]

And so what that means is, within manufacturing and distribution, we need to separate it and become subject matter experts in certain market segments, because again, each one of those market segments have different needs. They process things differently. And our clients are asking us to help them, so we need to understand it at that level.

[00:08:10]

John: So could you profile one of those market segments for us, those industry segments? I understand it, but I want to make sure those listening understand that.

[00:08:19]

Sam: Absolutely, absolutely. Let’s take printing, for example. It’s a great market segment. We have a concentration in the Midwest. They have a lot of pain points as it relates to leverage–managing working capital, expectations of their customers.

[00:08:36]

John: And it’s a business in total transition.

[00:08:38]

Sam: It is.

[00:08:38]

John: People are not printing, so what are–what do they sell?

[00:08:42]

Sam: They’re moving towards digital marketing. They are changing their brand to say, “We’re no longer a printer. We’re a marketer. We will help you go to market with your brand.”

[00:08:52]

John: And those that aren’t transitioning are being left behind.

[00:08:55]

Sam: They’re consolidating.

[00:08:56]

John: So our job is to stay in the game with them or help them stay in the game.

[00:08:59]

Sam: And it’s a unique skill set and expertise that they are looking for. They’re looking for that help, which is why, along our journey with industry specialization, CLA has gone from a community-based approach with our industry to now really needing to get focused on a market segment.

[00:09:17]

John: Yeah, and those industry segments, I can see where that would be, if you didn’t have that in–that depth of knowledge, you couldn’t bring a solution their way. And that’s built, of course, around career. So can we probe your personal story…

[00:09:32]

Sam: Sure.

[00:09:32]

John: …for a little bit more? I want to go back in time. I was struck, because you joined CLA as a senior associate, but when you were with a smaller firm, you were already at a networking event… at a networking event with just a few years of experience. Tell me about that, and what that felt like, and why you were asked to do that.

[00:09:57]

Sam: Well, I mean, being a part of a smaller firm, I think being in the market was really critical. I think it’s just as critical within CLA as it relates to creating a market brand, helping people understand what we can do. But I’ll tell you the feeling that I had was, you know, excitement, a little bit of anxiety, and a little bit of vulnerability, because I would walk into these rooms at networking events, and I would be the youngest person in the room, and I would in most cases be the only female.

[00:10:23]

John: So in the manufact–I would imagine in the manufacturing field, that would have been a bit of an anomaly, especially even as recent as–that was ten years ago.

[00:10:32]

Sam: But I saw it as a challenge, John, because again, I didn’t go to those events and feel like people looked down at me or looked at me differently. I actually felt like they wanted to help. So these business owners and people that I was engaged with, I was so afraid to go and talk to them, but once you struck up that conversation, they were more than willing to help you. So what turned into a scary situation turned into a huge education for me. Every event that I went to, I learned something different.

[00:10:58]

John: Hmm. So your career was built on experiences with manufacturers. It was built on these networking events. How else did you accumulate the experience and knowledge you have?

[00:11:11]

Sam: Well, I love to read. I love to read, so anytime I could get my hands on a book–a podcast now–an article, I would read it. I absorbed as much as I could about the external market so I could teach myself. I surrounded myself with– again, clients were great teachers, because they were always willing to teach. And then there was a lot of mentors over my career in different ways that I believe have really helped craft the career that I have today.

[00:11:39]

So I just–honestly, I was hungry for anything I could get my hands on, and some of the best experiences were those experiences that were through an inventory observation or an audit or a tax return. You know, I hear some of staff sometimes com–you know, being frustrated because they have to go do the observation. “Why can’t we send an intern?” And I always say, “If you don’t want to go, send me,” because every time I went there, I learned something, I saw how something was made, and I was able to make that connection, then, to the financial statements.

[00:12:10]

So again, I took every opportunity, ugly or pretty, and just tried to learn from it.

[00:12:17]

John: If you’re trying to learn, I would imagine you were asking questions that you…

[00:12:21]

Sam: A few. You know me, a few.

[00:12:23]

John: To which you didn’t know the answers.

[00:12:32]

Sam: Again, I just–the community that we work in, that’s part of why I’m with CLA, and that’s part of why I have such a passion for the clients that we serve. I have never, not once in the 17 years that I’ve been practicing, ever had someone say, “That’s a stupid question” or “I don’t understand why you’re asking that.” I have never had that happen to me. In fact, I have had an overw–I mean, I’ve asked stupid questions, believe me.

But it’s always come back a really educational, “let me help you,” “let’s go look at this,” “do you understand how this connects to this?” And again, that’s the only way that I was able to learn.

[00:13:06]

John: Hmm. So if you were going to look back now and give someone a checklist, if you will, or a strategic plan on how to build their industry-specialized, inspired career, what would you say to them?

[00:13:24]

Sam: I would say, find a passion, pick an industry, then pick a segment–I’m just getting really tactical here, find a mentor, trust CLA, and don’t be afraid to take the journey. Because again, I believe CLA gives you these bumpers, and I think that it’s really up to all of us and up to you as a young person to just try to find your way and your unique role to add value within CLA and to our clients. Does that make sense?

[00:13:56]

John: It does. So, Sam, if I were to summarize it, it would… become a learner.

Not one who always has the answer. You know, that’s a–that’s insightful, because as financial advisors, as practitioners, as CPAs, as experts in our field, we often want to be the one who has the answer, and we’re afraid to be wrong. But what you’re saying is, that’s the point. The point is actually not to know the answer and to be inquisitive, particularly in the early years.

Yeah, that’s, um… I gotta believe that’s helpful to someone who’s listening to us right now. Well, CLA, and Sam, I just have one final question, and maybe it was embodied in the last one, but I want you to imagine right now, in your mind’s eye, a senior associate who’s looking ahead at their career options. They’re making the thoughtful decision of whether they want to be on the principal path or on the director path, or maybe even the alumni path, and they’re looking ahead.

[00:15:04]

And they’re also being asked at that simultaneous to make a selection on the industry in which they’re going to pursue, and they aren’t quite sure and maybe don’t even have the passion you’re suggesting, ’cause it hasn’t yet emerged. What advice would you have for them?

[00:15:23]

Sam: Wow, that’s a really good question, John. I think my advice to them in that situation would be to really just be courageous. If there’s someone that they really find a passion for, or if there’s a mentor or someone that they connect with and they feel like they can learn a lot from, I may follow that person and the maybe the industry that they’re following.

Because again, over time, I think that mentor or individual that they get a lot from will help them find the way for themselves. It might not be in that industry. It could be in a completely different service line. But I believe good leadership and good mentorship will help you find your way. So, that would be my advice, right, wrong, or different, but I just was lucky enough to find the industry that I wanted to serve early on.

I know that that’s not the case for everybody else, so I would–I would follow a person that gets me excited to come to work every day.

[00:16:18]

John: Hmm, great advice from a great leader. Thank you, Sam, for coming and joining us today. That’s quite a story and a testament to CLA and our desire to inspire careers. Those of you who are listening, look ahead. Choose your path. Find the mentor that Sam is suggesting. And if you’re unsure about what path you want to follow, follow the leader you trust, and that passion, that future, will emerge.

[00:16:47]

Industry specialization is not about joining a group. It’s not about a designation. It’s about building and inspiring career, and it layers right on top of the outstanding opportunities for career development that come with our career paths. CLA, we are CLA, and we create opportunities.

Music out…

<end>

Keep Believing in the Promise Feb 06, 2019

Optimism and opportunity are everywhere. A great deal of our success is due to our commitment to the CLA Promise. Listen as Denny shares amazing client feedback as well as his thoughts on why so many people see what we have as something truly special.

[00:00:02]

Narrator: Welcome to Own the Promise, a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:16]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny Schleper coming to you in the heart of opportunity season. I hope everyone’s winter and the opportunity season is off to a great start.

I know I was looking at some of the preliminary budgets for 2019, and it looks like the budgets are coming back with some very strong optimistic growth in 2019, in the upper 7 percent, close to 8 percent range in revenue growth for the firm, so a lot of optimism, lots of opportunity, obviously, in this season. I know that many of you are extremely busy.

[00:00:56]

It’s not everyone’s busy time of the year, but for a large part of the firm, it is, and I just wanted to share an experience that I had over the last week or so with the entire family, because I think it really is so critical and so important that we keep what we have at CLA very much in mind, and this experience really came from the wealth summit that we had in Arizona at the end of January.

[00:01:27]

For those of you that don’t know, we brought together roughly 280 or so clients throughout the country that participate in our wealth advisory services, and this was an opportunity for us to bring them together, obviously get to know them better, build stronger relationships so that we could help them better,

But also to do some education and an opportunity just simply to attract more activity in our wealth advisory services to them. But it was a time for these wealth advisory clients to learn more about CLA as well.

[00:02:04]

And I think what they learned and the feedback that I received at this summit was really something amazing to me, because I think when those wealth advisory clients were able to get to understand CLA and who we are and what we have to offer to a greater extent, it really was so well received.

And some of the responses that I received just made me step back and question myself, why is it that what we have at CLA, why is it so special?

[00:02:42]

And I’ve been thinking about that ever since the summit, and what really came to mind for me was all of the people in the CLA family that really go beyond I’d say their day-to-day jobs and even leadership roles that they take on, call it within their job activity, but people that go even beyond that and take on roles that are really what I’ve always referred to as “and” roles.

They do all the things related to their jobs, but on top of that, they volunteer for things, and so they really take on an “and” position, not an “or,” not an “either-or,” but really everything that they do in their job and the volunteer opportunities that they find.

[00:03:35]

And I just started listing some of those. I started listing, you know, really starting with the board of directors. If you think about, that’s an elected position in the firm, but all of the board of directors also have their day jobs, and so the board of director of time that’s put in is an “and” activity.

[00:03:56]

And then I look at the future innovation team led by Jessica Platt and all the future innovation team members taking on that responsibility for the firm, the young executive team, led by Kadian Douglas, and all of the executive â€” young executive team members.

[00:04:16]

It goes beyond that for the young executive team because it goes to probably 40 to 50 young advisory councils that are throughout CLA, and all of the additional effort and volunteer time that people are putting in at those young advisory councils, At each young advisory council, we also have a chair of those young advisory councils.

[00:04:42]

So another role that people are willing to take on and do this because of their commitment and belief in CLA. The D&I council, led by Linda Rubenstein, all the D&I council members taking on that responsibility to make CLA a better, more inclusive place to work.

[00:05:06]

The CLA Foundation, not only the foundation board members that volunteer their time but then throughout CLA, the numerous foundation committee members and volunteers that spend their time throughout the year to help on some of the foundation activities, such as the grant applications and so forth that they review.

[00:05:34]

So that when we start to award those grants, that takes a tremendous amount of time. But the other committees as well, those of you out in the CLA family that actually nominate some of the organizations, that takes additional time to actually work with those organizations on the whole granting process.

[00:05:57]

The ninja teams that were pulled together through 2018, all of that time and effort that was put into this, it went beyond that. I started thinking of all of you that participate in Yammer. There’s no doubt in my mind that CLA as far as an internal kind of social network, and we use Yammer for that, we use that more than any other firm.

[00:06:24]

We have more participation. We have more of you sharing thoughts, ideas, sometimes technical, sometimes fun, sometimes just very inspiring. That time that you put in communicating with all of the CLA family, that’s above and beyond.

[00:06:44]

All of you that even if you just purchased one item from the CLA store and all the CLA gear that’s out there, that, again, is extra things that people are doing above and beyond. And then I’m sure I’m missing a lot of things, but throughout all of our offices, there’s special committees.

[00:07:04]

Sometimes it’s a social committee or a fun committee, and all of you are putting in extra time in that. And I started thinking of all these additional things that people do, and I was realizing that it’s because I believe that all of you, including myself, really believe in what we’re trying to build at CLA.

[00:07:30]

And I wanted to share with you an email that was shared with me, shared with me by Steve Bien, and it’s a client of Steve’sand I’d just like to paraphrase what this client had indicated to him and actually it was an email sent to this person’s employer.

[00:07:58]

This person was attending the wealth summit that I referred to, and I’d just like to read this to you because I think it really highlights the CLA culture that we have. And it starts by saying, “I’m sitting in a hotel room in Phoenix on day two of a wealth management conference put on by CLA.

[00:08:23]

I was expecting to learn about the market, investments, our crazy federal government, etcetera, etcetera, and I did. But what I wasn’t expecting was the soft stuff that emerged during this day and a half about CLA the company. Maybe it’s on my mind because of the conversation we’re having regarding employment engagement.

[00:08:49]

I mean, I certainly didn’t expect to come away from a wealth summit with a firm conviction about my financial planner. But when CLA kicked off the meeting with their welcome and the CLA promise,” this is all in capital letters, says, “I BELIEVED IT. Their promise is really quite simple.

[00:09:14]

‘CLA exists to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and our communities. We do this by living the CLA promise. We promise to know you and to help you.’ And then they went on for about an hour regarding all the things they are, things they believe, things they know, the things they do, the things they don’t do, to make that happen.

[00:09:44]

I expected to see people squirming in their seats, wondering when we would get to the good stuff. But everyone was very captured.â€ Again, capital letters, “WE BELIEVED THEM.”

[00:09:59]

I went from trusting that CLA would be a great steward with my hard-earned dollars, and I now believe they are a mission-driven firm, really from the top to the bottom. And that changes everything for me. It felt like it was as much a personal promise as it was the entire company’s.

[00:10:22]

And it didn’t feel like something the marketing department or a consultant came up with for them to put on the footer of their PowerPoints.” I thought this email really again capitalizes on what we have and expresses maybe the belief that I know we have in the CLA promise, and the fact that this is being seen by our clients.

[00:10:50]

This is being seen by the outside public, our referral sources, and I hope all of you truly can sit back today in this very busy time and appreciate the CLA promise, the culture that we are all building.

[00:11:06]

And I know many of you sitting in the Wisconsin marketplace are going through a tremendous amount of transition on top of the busy season and the opportunity season, so I just wanted to hopefully encourage you, let’s keep this going, let’s stay together, and let’s keep believing in the CLA promise. Thank you all, and have a great rest of the opportunity season.

<end>

Industry Forward – Jeff Vrieze and Cory Rutledge Talk Career Journey Jan 16, 2019

The CLA Promise offers many opportunities to the CLA family. One such opportunity is Deep Industry Specialization but it doesn’t happen overnight. Hear how one CLA veteran became an expert in an industry that wasn’t part of his original plan and why he encourages all of us to explore unique opportunities in our path to specialization.

[00:00:04]

Jeff: Welcome, CLA Family, to our Industry Forward podcast designed to tell the industry stories behind the CLA Promise. Many of you are on the path of specialization. Others are just getting started. At CLA, we exist to create opportunities. However, these opportunities may not always be aligned with your current specialization path. Today, we’ll be talking with Cory Rutledge, the MPI of our Senior Living practice.

Cory’s 16 years at CLA have not always been spent focused on Senior Living. Listen to Cory’s career journey, including how he evaluated his various opportunities presented to him from an emotional and career perspective and what he did to become specialized along the journey. Cory, welcome to Industry Forward. Could you share some of your highlights of your career journey at CLA?

[00:00:59]

Cory: Yeah, I’d be happy to. Thanks, Jeff. So I started as a traditional CPA here at CLA about 16 years ago. I started actually doing hospital work. I dabbled in kind of little jobs here and there, but really started my career path in terms of industry specialization in our hospital group, and I spent probably the first seven years of my career serving hospital clients throughout the country and then actually was asked by you, of all people, to change my career path and my industry focus and move to our Senior Living practice which was probably about eight or nine years ago.

[00:01:37]

Jeff: A lot of information in there, Cory. I want to unpack a few of those comments here as we go today. First of all, I’m just interested. As you think about specialization, you think about whether it’s hospitals or Senior Living or any of the other, but why healthcare? Why did you get involved in healthcare when you started 16 years ago?

[00:01:54]

Cory: I feel like some people, you know, when they start in an industry, they feel as though they have to have a passion for that industry day one, and I know that there’re some people in our practice that do. You know, I think of some people that I’ve talked to in our manufacturing group that grew up in a manufacturing household, and so they’re drawn to that industry. That is not the case for me. I started in healthcare literally because I was a job fair. I wanted a job that paid me money, and someone said, “Do you want to be in healthcare?” And so my answer was, “Yes.” So I did not have any kind of intrinsic draw to healthcare. I basically just wanted a job with a paycheck.

[00:02:29]

Jeff: I think many people probably at CLA can resonate around the fact that, “Give me an opportunity. Give me a job, and we can make a great career out of it.” So maybe let’s just dig a little bit deeper in sort of expanding your industry, getting knowledgeable. You spent the first seven years, I believe you mentioned, in the hospital industry, and what were some of the key things you did to drive sort of that industry specialization, the knowledge, the expertise, that as you were early in your career, you know, years one through seven? What were those pieces that you got excited about and drove your knowledge in that industry sector?

[00:03:02]

Cory: I had spent the early part of my career doing almost exclusively audit work, and one thing that the hospital group does exceptionally well is that when that group goes out into the field to conduct an audit, at the end of our time there, we’ve always done an exit discussion. So we get around a table with key leaders, whether that be CEO, CFO, and we have a conversation about the audit, about their business, you know, some industry trends, some things that are going on.

[00:03:33]

And when I think about what drove my knowledge in healthcare, and at that time my knowledge of the hospital industry, it was really my experiences in those exit discussions, and I want to differentiate “experiences” versus “experience.” So “experience” is more about how long you’ve been doing something. The “experiences” are these momentary, you know, these points in time where you’re sitting around the table and you’re having a different kind of conversation that’s something other than just an audit-related discussion.

[00:04:01]

So in short, what really drove my industry knowledge and my expertise was I spent the first several years listening, you know, listening to really smart people in the industry. I think of people like Matt Claeys and Rob Sheeley, Dan Frein, Darryn McGarvey, Cory Beltzer. Those people really, you know, raised me, and as I listen to how they interacted with clients, and probably even more importantly I listened to clients and the things that were on their mind, that’s really how I became knowledgeable in the industry is simply because I listened to folks that were talking about the industry and talking about what was important to them and their business.

[00:04:36]

Jeff: Cory, a couple things through that. It sounds like, number one, your initial service was really in the audit world, but you spent a lot of time listening which provided you experiences and insights that were able to do more than just the audit.

[00:04:52]

As you think about that audit platform and you think about all the different services that we have at CLA today, is there anything other–any other advice that you would share with any of your CLA family members that would cause you to say, “It’s just not the audit as well, but you could do this in any of our service offerings.” Is there any advice, other than the listening aspect, you would encourage your family members to do to dig in and really become specialized?

[00:05:16]

Cory: Yeah. You know, as I think about particularly our CPAs–I’m gonna be a little bit hard on our CPAs here at CLA, and I can do that because I am one, right? So I think CPAs are generally built to want to know the answer, and when we don’t have the answer, some times we’re afraid to have the conversation.

[00:05:34]

We have to be 100% right and know how every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed before we’re willing to have a conversation, and to me, that is a big barrier that we need to get through. So I think it’s really important that–You know, one piece of advice that I would give is that we don’t have to have the answer in order to have a conversation. And in fact, I would argue that it’s even more important to ask the question as opposed to have the answer.

[00:05:59]

I think as we are interacting with clients, if we’re transparent and we are interested in what they have to say, and we seek to understand and we have an intellectual curiosity, that is really what’s gonna drive our industry knowledge. Pretending that we know all the answers all the time does not–One, people don’t want to talk to us, and two, people aren’t gonna share some of their vulnerabilities, so I think that having that curiosity is really what creates a more well-rounded industry professional.

[00:06:26]

Jeff: So thanks, Cory. Let me shift gears on to one of the other experiences, opportunities that you were mentioned at the onset here, and that was sort of this changing your career path. You mentioned the first seven years you were focused in the hospital, and then all of a sudden there was probably a few disruptions that came along the way that made you begin to scratch your head and say, “Is this the right path for me?” I want to just dig a little bit deeper with that, and as you think about creating these opportunities, you know, and specifically for our people, I know you’ve been afforded more than just, “Would you be willing to change from hospital to Senior Living?”

[00:07:01]

But there’s been some geography questions as well. Can you just share some of the thoughts and maybe challenges, emotions, that went through your head as you were afforded opportunities, and maybe just share a little bit about what they might’ve been and how you came to the decisions that you came to?

[00:07:17]

Cory: Yeah. So I’ll start with actually–So before I switched from hospitals to Senior Living, I was actually asked to move to our Philadelphia office probably in 2006 to start a hospital practice there of all things, and I looked really hard at that opportunity.

[00:07:30]

And at that point in time, Denny Schleper was a key person in that particular office. And so when I went out and met with the office and looked at houses and things like that, I was interacting with Denny in this, and I decided ultimately that it was not the right move for me, and I have to be honest. I was scared that that would be a giant black mark on my career. I thought that might be a career-limiting move taking a hard look at a geographic relocation and ultimately saying “no” to it. But as I look in the rearview mirror, it was the best thing I could’ve done.

[00:07:59]

I don’t think I was emotionally ready. I don’t think I was professionally ready. I just don’t think it would’ve been the right move for me. So that was probably the–That’s the first thing that comes to mind. And the second one, which you know, obviously we eluded to, is switching from our hospital group, and I’ll pause and say a group to which I have a ton of loyalty. So I loved my time in the hospital group. I have great relationships to this day with some of our hospital leaders, so it’s not as though I was looking to get out of a not-great situation. I loved working for hospitals.

[00:08:31]

But I was offered an opportunity to join our Senior Living team, and so you know, maybe part of your question was, “Why did I make that decision and what was going through my head?” Ultimately I–I knew early in my career that I wanted to be a principal. When I think about the things that I’m good at, growing business and developing client relationships, that’s something that I thrive on and something that I enjoy, and so I knew that I wanted to get to that place. I didn’t necessarily care where I did it. Again, I had a lot of loyalties to the hospital group, not because of hospitals, but because of the people that worked in the hospital group.

[00:09:04]

And so when I was asked to join the Senior Living team, frankly the first thing that went through my head was, “Well, Senior Living is not sexy. Like, I don’t know that I want to be joining that group. That is not a group that I’m that excited about joining.” But as, you know, we unpacked the opportunity, I knew that it would get me to where I wanted to be faster, and so I decided to take the plunge and go ahead and join our Senior Living group.

[00:09:26]

Jeff: So Cory, I can remember us, frankly, driving probably between Minneapolis and Des Moines, and for those of you that are a little geographically challenged like myself, that’s about a three-and-a-half to four-hour drive one way. I think we had a day. We were going down there to–I can’t remember.–to talk to a client or prospect, and I think we got in to this conversation a little deeper, and I can remember even you saying, “I don’t think that’s for me,” for the right reasons that you probably just said, and this maybe’s faster, but share a little more about just how did you get over this fact that, “Well, I don’t know as many people.”

[00:10:01]

“Therefore I might not trust as many people. All my friends are doing hospital work, so I have great relationships,” and you’re taking a plunge into maybe the dark unknown, and as you said, it wasn’t sexy. What other emotions–I mean, what ultimately got you to say, “Let me do this,” because I know, ’cause we talked a number of times back then about, “This isn’t right for me, and I really don’t think I should do this,” and I had to kind of push a little harder–I admit that.–but ultimately here you are today, and your career is, you know, going fabulously from a lot of people’s perspective, and just what ultimately really got you to say, “I’m gonna take this leap of faith?”

[00:10:40]

Cory: I think if I boil it down, it was conversations with other leaders in our healthcare practice and a recognition that this wasn’t just one person asking me to do something because they wanted me to do something. It was broader than that, so there was a strategy behind it that people, you know, frankly in our Senior Living group and our hospital group and other parts of our practice had discussed.

[00:11:06]

So it wasn’t just a, “Hey, you want to do this.” It was a well thought-out, you know, concept. And because the leadership of the industry had thought about it and thought of me as somebody who might be able to make a difference in it, that gave me a lot of confidence that even if I didn’t think I was the right person, clearly somebody saw something that told them that I was the right person.

[00:11:32]

And because I trusted our leadership, and ultimately I trusted the firm, I gained confidence that if this didn’t work, that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of Cory at CLA. I guess I had trust that people had my back, and ultimately whether it’s in hospitals or Senior Living or trash companies for all I care, as long as I know that I have a team that has my back and there’s trust, I’m up for pretty well anything.

[00:11:55]

Jeff: So maybe one additional question for you, Cory. As you think about the sub-industry change, and you had seven years of knowledge and insight that you’d worked really hard. Now you’re in a new sub-industry niche. You’re, you know, late in your year seven, maybe early year eight, and you know, you’ve been the MPI of our Senior Living practice for probably two to three years now. What was just those two or three things that cause you to go deep and learn a sub-industry in a pretty short period of time to be as impactful as you became and to be offered the opportunity to become the managing principal of this industry?

[00:12:31]

Cory: What I’m gonna share isn’t necessarily the path for everybody. In fact, I’m sure it’s not the path for everybody, but for me, it was speaking. So speaking at state association meetings to start, and then on national stages, for me that was the area where, like, I had to know my stuff, so it forced me to learn things in a lot greater depth than I would naturally. What I think I am decent at is sharing information and presenting ideas and concepts and getting audiences to think about things in a little different manner.

[00:13:03]

And so I spent the first several years in Senior Living just speaking. So I’d go to state associations and national trade associations and speak because it kind of told the audience that I knew what I was talking about even if I didn’t, and it gained confidence within myself that, “Hey, Cory, you’re gonna be on stage. You better learn this, and it’s gonna make you smart.” And for me, that gained me credibility, and it gained a lot of confidence in me.

[00:13:26]

Jeff: That’s very interesting, Cory. I think about a lot of our people that we’ve run across in our industry lives of speaking as a substantial fear, and I’m just interested as you think about, you know, a lot of people won’t–You said it earlier. You got to be 100% right, and I got to know all the answers. Obviously, you got on the stage. You started doing presentations. You probably didn’t have all the answers. What got you though that fear, right? The question’s gonna come in the audience that, “Oh, my goodness. I’m new to this industry. I don’t know.” What got you through that fear? ‘Cause there might be some nugget there for others as they think about just taking the leap and doing a presentation or writing an article?

[00:14:04]
Cory: I guess one is the size of the stage I started on, right? So I wouldn’t have come out with, you know, guns blazing on a national stage. That would not be wise. So I would start with, you know, a smaller stage, say a state trade association, or you know, I don’t know all the industries what that stage would be, but if you get to a topic where you’ve done some research, you create some interesting stories around it, and you bring a different perspective–So I think just kind of creating your story that’s yours and having it something that is relevant to the audience, you don’t necessarily have to know everything, and in fact, I think it’s great in presentations when you don’t know everything to bring the audience into it.

[00:14:38]

That gets audience participation which makes it a more compelling story to begin with. So at some point you just have to get out and do it, right, and you have to recognize that, “Hey, this might not go 100% as planned, but I’m out here. I’m trying my best,” and I think that people have some respect for people that do that.

[00:14:56]

Jeff: So Cory, in closing here, you’ve been presented opportunities over your career, and because of your hard work and your energy and your effort, but you’ve also said “no,” and I think that’s a key thing for our family members to understand. It’s okay to say “no,” and it’s not gonna penalize your career because obviously you’ve had a great career thus far, and you’ve got a bright future. As you think about advice to your family at CLA, is there things you know today that you wish you would’ve known eight years ago, 15 years ago, that you would just leave with your family members the couple nuggets of advice as they think about specializing in industry at CLA?

[00:15:35]

Cory: Two things come to mind. First, there are a lot of good accountants in the country, but having industry specialization truly is what sets CLA apart. I’ll speak for our Senior Living practice. We don’t get work because we’re good CPAs. We get work because we know the industry. And so for those, I guess, in our family who haven’t had the depth of industry expertise or the opportunity to dive deep into an industry, first my recommendation is get into an industry.

[00:16:02]

It’s wildly important and a huge driver or growth in our practice. The second piece is just related to kind of the posture of how we enter into an industry. Having a posture of curiosity and openness and not knowing all the answers but also not being scared of the answers you don’t know I think is pretty powerful. So the way that I look at it, and I try to explain this to some of our new people when they start, the Senior Living business or the healthcare business or fill-in-the-blank, manufacturing, construction, whatever the industry is, it is a complicated multi-faceted, multidimensional puzzle, and it can be very overwhelming to start, but I think as–

[00:16:42]

If we’re mindful of putting those pieces together, starting somewhere just to put two pieces together, and then have those two pieces come up with, you know, another chunk of the puzzle, over the course of time, you build a lot of industry knowledge and expertise without even really recognizing it. So it’s all about having experiences with leaders in our practice and having experiences with clients that help to put those pieces together where we can ultimately make an impact on our clients and on the industry in total.

[00:17:12]

Jeff: Industry specialization connects us to our clients in a deeper more meaningful way. Thank you, Cory, for telling your story, and thank you to CLA for listening.

Opportunity Season Starts Today! Jan 03, 2019

As we begin a new year with new promises, we want to focus on opportunities that will translate directly into your inspired career, opportunities to better serve our clients, and CLA’s new focus on social responsibility.

[00:00:02]

Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:15]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny coming to you at the beginning of 2019. I hope everyone had some great time at the end of 2018 to relax, enjoy some time with your family and friends, and really an opportunity to sit back and hopefully appreciate the incredible great year that CLA had in 2018.

[00:00:41]

I want to again thank all of you for the efforts that were put in to make this a great firm, and not only great results but really moving the culture of CLA and the CLA family. I also want to look at 2019 and update you on some of the wonderful things that are happening here very soon. Probably within the next day or so you will be receiving — our clients will be receiving and our alumni will be receiving — our CLA Promise Report for 2018.

[00:00:54]

Really recapping all of the tremendous things that had happened in 2018 and also the look ahead at 2019. Please read that if you would. Watch some of the embedded videos. It’s an opportunity, I think, to get better informed as to what has truly happened within CLA and better prepare all of you to not only speak with your clients but speak with the people in your communities and also our people across the country.

[00:01:44]

So please take a look at that CLA Promise Report. Also as we enter into January, we are entering into opportunity season. As you know in ‘18 we finished up with the summer at CLA and we headed into the promise season, and now in January of ‘19 we’re headed into our opportunity season. What does that really mean? It’s really an opportunity season — one for all of us, our people — it’s really designed to be a very inspirational season.

[00:02:16]

It is called opportunity season because we want to reflect on what opportunities could be available for really your inspired careers. You know, every time we have an opportunity to do more for our clients, more service opportunities, that should translate directly into your inspired careers and building opportunities for that. So we hope that that clearly happens during opportunity season.

[00:02:43]

What about for our clients? Well, what we’re really gonna be looking at in opportunity season for our clients is really an idea that we’re not done serving our client until the opportunity is found. In other words, in every compliance, even if it’s beyond compliance opportunity we have to serve, we’re gonna be looking as where is that opportunity, and have we found that opportunity for our client?

[00:03:14]

We serve over 150,000 clients, so that’s 150,000 opportunities that we should be creating during this season. And then of course continued focus on our communities, not only through the CLA foundation, which I hope gets kicked off to a very fast start in 2019, but also what we’re going to be doing is kicking off really the start of CLA social responsibility.

[00:03:43]

We’re gonna be putting together a group as one of the priorities for 2019, a group to develop a very formal social responsibility — for right now let’s call it a document, a statement. We’ll develop this in 2019 to really help us all focus on what is CLA’s social responsibility? Where do we stand on it? What can we all get behind as a CLA family regarding that responsibility?

[00:04:14]

So I mentioned, not only in the CLA Promise Report, but also one of the priorities for 2019, being around creating opportunities for our communities, that gets into really engaging this family to elevate our social impact or that social responsibility. The leaders of CLA also came together later in ‘18 and developed the rest of the priorities for 2019.

[00:04:43]

There are seven of them altogether. I just mentioned one, creating the opportunities for our communities. There’s also gonna be the repeated priority from ‘18 about creating opportunities for our clients. That needs to be repeated, because really advancing the seamless experience for our clients is still something that we have not accomplished to the level that I believe we can do within CLA.

[00:05:13]

I think our opportunities in advancing our seamless capabilities is absolutely endless. And there’s still too many examples across the country, too many examples across our industries, where we’re really not, I would say, accomplishing that to the level that we could. We had the great results, but the opportunity in this area, again, is endless. So that remains an opportunity.

[00:05:41]

Also another one that’s really carried over from ‘18 is creating opportunities for our people. Inspire careers for today and tomorrow. I think the area that we need to make the most progress in ‘19 and why this remains a priority is our coaching. I think this is the area that probably has the most opportunity for us.

[00:06:05]

All of us as coaches throughout the CLA family, really picking it up, really committing ourselves to be the best coaches we can be for our people and really making sure that this inspired careers concept is something that happens for everyone within CLA. Another one is the one firm; work as one family. I think again as we sit here in January, we also want to welcome our new friends in Wisconsin that have just joined us.

[00:06:38]

And I think this is an area that really pertains to them, probably as much if not more than the rest of the country, because they’re new and sticking together as one firm, figuring out how to deliver all of the capability of CLAs to those new clients, how to integrate as one firm, is obviously a very big challenge, not only a priority for Wisconsin, but again a priority for the rest of the firm that we stick together as one firm in 2019 and beyond.

[00:07:13]

Another priority is embracing and executing innovation. Last year, we were more trying to identify the “where is the disruption within the marketplace within our industry?” We think we’re beyond that. And so the priority for ‘19 is to really embrace it and execute on this innovation, really driving innovation as a competitive advantage.

[00:07:39]

Another priority is expanding the CLA brand. I know all of you, except for that just joined in January, experienced really the rollout of the CLA brand. We want to accelebrate that brand recognition. We all know there’s a tremendous ways we can go in taking the CLA brand and taking not only the CLA logo which you see all over the place but now the CLA symbol of the bicycle and taking that to levels that none of us can really imagine at this point.

[00:08:15]

We need to continue to leave that as a priority in 2019 and hopefully make great progress. And the seventh and final priority for 2019 is really what we hope just reinforces our foundation, and that’s continue to think about security and quality in everything we do.

[00:08:38]

And those two really are elevated to the same level, meaning security issues across the firm, all those things we know of, of watching the phishing emails, watching our computer security, watching just everything we do to make sure that we remain secure within CLA for all of us as well as our clients. And then quality I think we’ve done a tremendous job as a firm, elevating this quality. But we have to continue to concentrate on that each and every day.

[00:09:12]

So those seven priorities really can all be identified as ways that we can elevate and accelerate in 2019. And that is really what we’re attempting to do. The theme of 2019 is to take this great year we had in 2018 and say, how can we make 2019 even a greater year?

And that is by elevating and accelerating all of these priorities within CLA. You’re gonna hear more about these priorities. There’s gonna be a lot of work done on that, but just as a start in ‘19, let’s think about the opportunity season. Once again, spend some time with the CLA Promise report from 2018, and really let’s all commit as the CLA family.

[00:10:08]

We have the opportunity in 2019 to make this even a greater year than what we experienced in 2018. There should be nothing preventing us within CLA from accomplishing this. But obviously it takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of commitment, and it really just needs all of us to say to one another, what can we individually do to impact that CLA family?

[00:10:36]

And as I’ve said many, many times, don’t ever underestimate what you as an individual can do and the impact that you can have on elevating and accelerating CLA in 2019. Happy New Year to everyone, and I am extremely excited about this year. I hope all of you are as well. Thank you, and have a great day.

[music out]

-END-

Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:15]

[00:00:41]

I want to again thank all of you for the efforts that were put in to make this a great firm, and not only great results but really moving the culture of CLA and the CLA family. I also want to look at 2019 and update you on some of the wonderful things that are happening here very soon. Probably within the next day or so you will be receiving–our clients will be receiving and our alumni will be receiving–our CLA Promise Report for 2018.

[00:00:54]

[00:01:44]

So please take a look at that CLA Promise Report. Also as we enter into January, we are entering into opportunity season. As you know in ’18 we finished up with the summer at CLA and we headed into the promise season, and now in January of ’19 we’re headed into our opportunity season. What does that really mean? It’s really an opportunity season–one for all of us, our people–it’s really designed to be a very inspirational season.

[00:02:16]

[00:02:43]

[00:03:14]

[00:03:43]

We’re gonna be putting together a group as one of the priorities for 2019, a group to develop a very formal social responsibility–for right now let’s call it a document, a statement. We’ll develop this in 2019 to really help us all focus on what is CLA’s social responsibility? Where do we stand on it? What can we all get behind as a CLA family regarding that responsibility?

[00:04:14]

So I mentioned, not only in the CLA Promise Report, but also one of the priorities for 2019, being around creating opportunities for our communities, that gets into really engaging this family to elevate our social impact or that social responsibility. The leaders of CLA also came together later in ’18 and developed the rest of the priorities for 2019.

[00:04:43]

There are seven of them altogether. I just mentioned one, creating the opportunities for our communities. There’s also gonna be the repeated priority from ’18 about creating opportunities for our clients. That needs to be repeated, because really advancing the seamless experience for our clients is still something that we have not accomplished to the level that I believe we can do within CLA.

[00:05:13]

[00:05:41]

Also another one that’s really carried over from ’18 is creating opportunities for our people. Inspire careers for today and tomorrow. I think the area that we need to make the most progress in ’19 and why this remains a priority is our coaching. I think this is the area that probably has the most opportunity for us.

[00:06:05]

[00:06:38]

[00:07:13]

Another priority is embracing and executing innovation. Last year, we were more trying to identify the “where is the disruption within the marketplace within our industry?” We think we’re beyond that. And so the priority for ’19 is to really embrace it and execute on this innovation, really driving innovation as a competitive advantage.

[00:07:39]

[00:08:15]

We need to continue to leave that as a priority in

2019 and hopefully make great progress. And the seventh and final priority for 2019 is really what we hope just reinforces our foundation, and that’s continue to think about security and quality in everything we do.

[00:08:38]

And those two really are elevated to the same level, meaning security issues across the firm, all those things we know of, of watching the fishing emails, watching our computer security, watching just everything we do to make sure that we remain secure within CLA for all of us as well as our clients. And then quality I think we’ve done a tremendous job as a firm, elevating this quality. But we have to continue to concentrate on that each and every day.

[00:09:12]

So those seven priorities really can all be identified

as ways that we can elevate and accelerate in 2019. And that is really what we’re attempting to do. The theme of 2019 is to take this great year we had in 2018 and say, how can we make 2019 even a greater year?

And that is by elevating and accelerating all of these priorities within CLA. You’re gonna hear more about these priorities. There’s gonna be a lot of work done on that, but just as a start in ’19, let’s think about the opportunity season. Once again, spend some time with the CLA Promise report from 2018, and really let’s all commit as the CLA family.

[00:10:08]

We have the opportunity in 2019 to make this even

a greater year than what we experienced in 2018. There should be nothing preventing us within CLA from accomplishing this. But obviously it takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of commitment, and it really just needs all of us to say to one another, what can we individually do to impact that CLA family?

[00:10:36]

[music out]

-END-

Industry Forward – Nat Bartholomew and Tauer talk Associations – Just Scratching the Surface! Dec 20, 2018

[00:00:05]

Langan: Our promise comes alive when we live our culture, when we are entrepreneurs, owners, and leaders. At the center of the CLA promise is our promise to know you and help you, and especially in pursuing the why, to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and communities. The strategic advantages that support our promise include two we will focus on today; deep industry specialization and being the career building firm.

[00:00:31]

Our belief is that industry specialization connects us to our clients in a deeper and more meaningful way than a narrow focus on a particular service specialty, and in doing so, it creates more meaningful opportunities for our clients, our people, and even in today’s example, our communities.

[00:01:02]

Welcome, CLA family, to our Industry Forward podcast, designed to tell the industry stories behind the CLA promise. I’m John Langan, Chief Industry Officer at CLA. What does the life cycle of industry specialization look like and how does it create these opportunities? To help us answer these questions, we’ve invited Nat Bartholomew, our Washington D.C. based National Association Practice leader and John Tauer, our Minneapolis based non-profit based industry leader, to speak to us today.

[00:01:32]

Both Nat and John have built and led significant association practices over their career that have created opportunities for their clients, their teams, the firm, and themselves. So Nat, let’s start with you. How did you first come to service associations and decide that this would be your primary concentration?

[00:01:50]

Nat: Well, John, I wish I had a cool answer right out of the blocks, but honestly, it was an opportunity. I took it and I ran with it. One of the managers in our association practice was a member at ASAE and left the firm. And so when that person left, I just picked up their membership and started to go. The idea was, I heard it was cool meetings, it was fun, it was great destinations, and honestly, that’s kind of what took me into this.

[00:02:15]

But what really happened next was, I had a lot of fun, had a lot of fun doing it, and so I became a specialist in the nonprofit sector and really started looking at associations as really, truly a different group. I wanted to succeed, so bottom line, I attended, I listened, I read, I did everything I could do, you know, just any opportunity to get me in front of associations. You know, when people ask me, they say, “What do you do, Nat? You know, what is it you do?”

[00:02:42]

And after trying to explain I’m not just an accountant or I can’t do taxes, it’s, you know, I explain, I interpret financial information for the best of the best in every profession and industry under the sun. Last Monday, I was with the board of the National Association of Broadcasters. That means the CEO of TVs and radio stations–the largest media groups in the nation, on the planet.

[00:03:05]

By Wednesday, I was with the Military Officers Association of America, their board, down in Phoenix, Arizona. I met with admirals and generals. And then that Friday, I was with the CFO of National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. They’ve got 20 related entities. They’ve got two ten-story office buildings in Arlington, 25 billion in three investments, in investment funds, pension funds–and that is with a “B”–hundreds of employees.

[00:03:34]

They require a single audit, a federal funded audit. They have a wholly-owned brokerage firm. It’s one of the coolest clients we have at the firm. Seriously? And, you know, honestly, it all comes down to this: To be on the board of an association, you are the best of the best in your trade or profession. I’m always looking across the table at the best of the best. The chairman of the American Nurse’s Association audit committee is the chief nurse at Johns Hopkins.

[00:03:58]

She has 3,000 nurses reporting to her. The chairman of the Edison’s Electric Institute’s executive committee, CEO of Duke Energy, the largest publicly traded company on the electric utilities in the country, one of them. American Hotel and Lodging Association–you’re sitting across from Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton. Does it get any cooler than that?

[00:04:18]

Langan: Nat, for somebody who stumbled into it just because you wanted some cool trips, it sounds like you caught the passion pretty quickly. That sounds like a very cool practice area. So John, what brought you to the association world?

[00:04:31]

Tauer: A little bit like Nat, I would say it found me first, which was really a matter of getting assigned to a couple clients that I really didn’t probably understand at all, but very early in my career, probably at the two year level, I started developing kind of a strong understanding of unrelated business income, lobbying, proxy taxes, for-profit subsidiaries. And many of you may be listening may say, “Well, what’s that?”

[00:04:54]

Well, that was the value of me knowing that, is that many people didn’t have a good understanding of unrelated business income and all the risks that are associated on the tax side with associations, and to some extent, tax is what probably drove me toward the association practice more than anything. With that, then I was able to develop a very strong reputation within the community, within the environment, even within the firm.

[00:05:16]

And the firm had a lot of connections with industries, with associations, and that’s how I was able to kind of grow the practice fairly early on, is just taking advantage of the CLA way. At that time, CLA was focusing on developing strong industry professions, this was about 20 years ago. And what were they doing? They were getting involved in the in the industry associations, the state associations, the local association.

[00:05:41]

Every time I would go to one of those meetings, or have an opportunity to provide our services or talk about our services, around that table there would be other individuals that had worked at CLA. Either their company had worked with CLA or they knew other principles or other staff within CLA, and that greatly helped me develop that practice very early on, because, again, we were an industry-based firm. So again, that’s how I got involved.

[00:06:05]

Langan: So it sounds like associations within a non-profit practice are pretty unique. Nat, how are associations different from other non-profits, and– there seems to be some mystery around them, so maybe you could clarify.

[00:06:18]

Nat: Sure. Associations, really, are there to fulfill the needs and desires of professionals or businesses. They bring people together with similar goals and objectives. The idea is, “we’re better together.” Services to members include things like education and training, certification and credentialing, sharing of resources in content and magazines, white papers, journals, e-newsletters, websites, the ability to advertise your sale at trade shows, you see job boards, you see insurance programs.

[00:06:48]

The multitude of non-dues products and services are tremendous. Associations are uniquely different from other non-profits because it’s all about the value to the constituency. It’s measured, and we look at metrics; the number of members, the number of attendees, the number of certificates, maybe the number of donors, the number of volunteers, the number of books sold, the number of click-throughs on a website, the number of hours of education delivered, you know, square footage on the show floor sold, and quite frankly, one of the most important ones is the ability to successfully lobby or advocate on behalf of your constituents.

[00:07:23]

Langan: I know that, Nat, you mentioned some very large associations that are headquartered in DC, and I know it’s a big part of our DC practice, but John, there’s also state and local associations and affiliates of the national groups. Is this an opportunity across CLA?

[00:07:39]

Tauer: Yeah, and this is where, you know, you can really involve the association practice in every market. You talk about the metropolitan market here in the Twin Cities, it’s maybe 10th or 12th-largest in the country, and there’s over 700 associations. So again, lots of organizations to work with. Any time there’s a national association, there’s a state equivalent to that, whether you’re talking about hospital, retailers, auto dealers.

[00:08:03]

Again, many organizations, and more than you can probably even think about. In just the Twin Cities market alone, we–that practice has grown to over $3 million. So if you can think of that in the Twin Cities, obviously, we could duplicate that in St. Louis, in Denver, in Phoenix, in LA, and you can name, you know, another 20 large cities we are in that we could create that $3 million with those same relationships.

[00:08:26]

Langan: So, Nat, it sounds like a huge opportunity, not only for the firm, but for the people across the firm. So could you give us a sense of how large an opportunity is and what our market share is here?

[00:08:36]

Nat: This association group is $30 million. It’s got 20 CRPs already, as of September 30 that are billed more than a quarter of a million dollars. With 2,000 international, national, state, and local associations, you know, we’re the largest provider to this community in the nation. That said, there’s tens of thousands of associations out there. So honestly, the sky’s the limit.

[00:09:02]

Langan: So, John, talk about service mix. Are we just auditing these groups, doing 990s? Or is it a broader service mix offering?

[00:09:10]

Tauer: I mean, it’s a much broader mix, and particularly any of the non-profit segments, certainly the association practice is much broader, and we’ve relied on those other services to continue to grow at up to $30 million that it is today. So again, just kind of looking at my practice here locally, I think it’s a good example of that. Looking at the practice here locally, less than 1/3 of that work is assurance related, and I think that may surprise many individuals that look at the non-profit segment in total.

[00:09:37]

Â So what is that? A significant amount is vis op, but there’s also consulting involved, some wealth advisory, cast, and other advisory services as well. And fact of the matter is, these associations are very open to, you know, again, needing these type of capabilities. And they’re small organizations many times, particularly at the state and local level, and they need all of our services, so–

[00:09:59]

Langan: It sounds like, based on your earlier answer about the capabilities that you brought and developing yourself personally, the technical capabilities, that they’re really starved for that, in terms of their staff size and their capabilities in the turnover and maybe the lack of a career path within some of those groups so that outsourcing or consulting are probably just as powerful for them as opportunities than audits.

[00:10:27]

Tauer: Yep, they have all those same issues, and then some.

[00:10:30]

Langan: So, Nat, I know what you’ve done in Washington, in terms of making yourself a famous person, which is important, in terms of building your career in any industry. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve done it, the team that you’ve created, and the opportunities that have presented themselves for those people on your team.

[00:10:50]

Nat: Okay, so I hate to say it, but I am the Ben Affleck of associations. All right, just being a little punny on the movie “The Accountant,” but seriously, you know, it all starts by putting yourself out there. You know, you start by joining. I joined the American Society of Association Executives, that’s the association of associations, I mentioned that earlier. I attended a few events, then I submitted an abstract to speak. And then I spoke a few times.

[00:11:14]

I volunteered for a committee. I gave some money to their PAC. I gave some money to their foundation. I played in their golf events. I joined a bowling league, and I’m not good. Okay, I attended happy hours, mixers, brown bag lunches. It takes a lot of effort. I made connections; friends of the firm, attorneys, insurance advisors, bankers, investment advisors, hotels and destinations, and yes, accounting firms.

[00:11:39]

So I became the chair of one committee, then another. Was invited to be on an honorary committee, and then I became a board member. ASAE has 45,000 members. There are only two supplier members on that board, so I’m one of two, which is kind of crazy, right. So I’m applying now for fellowship, and they bestow that honor on less than 100 members.

[00:12:01]

I now have the clout at ASAE and within the industry to get others on boards, on the committees, and so I’m scratching the backs of friends of the firm, prospects, clients, and certainly other members of my team. You know, it’s nice to have this kind of pull, and quite frankly, it’s huge. One piece of advice on all of this: Stretch your comfort zone. Put yourself out there.

[00:12:23]

Langan: So, Nat, you mentioned that you’re being considered as an ASA fellow. As somebody who got rejected twice from that, I don’t appreciate that, but I wish you the best of luck. John, does this–these opportunities for our clients and our people, do they only extend to the non-profit industry, or how can they extend to CLA people in other industries across the firm?

[00:12:46]

Tauer: Sure, again, always trying to focus in on this one-firm concept. And I’ll just tell a quick story just from last week. A construction contractor association I work with here locally gave me a call and said they’re having an annual retreat for their contractor members in Las Vegas. And they said, “Do you have anybody that can come talk on tax reform?”

[00:13:06]

Again, they’re looking at it from the standpoint of their contractors and the construction industry dealing with, really, a lot of entity structure issues is what they kind of defined that issue to me. Obviously, I’m not the one to talk about that. And then they said “What date was that?” And they said basically, it was about three days before the March 15th deadline, and I–

[00:13:24]

And I’m smart enough to know that we have a lot of tax people that are pretty busy at that point. And am I gonna be able to find somebody, you know, again, in Minneapolis that’s gonna come on over and want to fly down to Vegas for a day and a half or two days to make this presentation? But I said, “Okay, we have an office here in Vegas.” So I contacted some individuals in the construction group in Las Vegas. They said, “Yep, we’ll do it.” They’ll go head over to their meeting.

[00:13:47]

Again, present some topics of, you know, basically information on tax reform, and be able to help them out from an industry standpoint. So there we’re really connecting our construction expertise on a national basis with an organization that just so happens to be in Las Vegas, again, a few days before the March 15th deadline. We’re able to deliver that to them. And again, keep building our relationship with them not just from an association standpoint, but from a industry standpoint as well.

[00:14:11]

Langan: So a fancy name for that is vertical integration, right? Where we can drill down through an association that might be a health care association, a manufacturing association, a trucking association, to help our other industry groups get opportunities for people in our firm. So, Nat, finally, how does serving associations create opportunities for our communities?

[00:14:37]

Nat: Well, with respect to communities, associations, by their nature, they’re always community-minded. Often they have related foundations, charitable activities. By serving our association clients, we’re expanding our reach into those communities, we’re giving CLA a higher profile, locally, nationally, and internationally.

[00:14:55]

Langan: I want to thank you both for your leadership in growing opportunities for our clients, people in communities through your passion for serving associations.

[00:15:04]

Tauer: Thank you, John for having me here today.

[00:15:06]

Nat: Yeah, thanks, John. Really appreciate it.

Introducing Wisconsin One Dec 06, 2018

Following the recent announcement that Wisconsin-based CPA firm Schenck team members will be joining CLA, Denny Schleper has a short Q&A with Schenck CEO Dan Young.

[00:00:02]

Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:15]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny coming to you once again in the month of December, getting towards the end of a very, very successful year of 2018. Thank you for everyone within the CLA family for really transforming CLA from what we thought was that very good firm to really that great firm, and having truly a great year thanks to everyone’s efforts within the family. Obviously, as we look into 2019, we’re gonna be looking to say, “How can we become an even greater firm?”

And as part of that today, we have some exciting news that was announced last week, and I know everyone within the CLA family is aware that the Schenck CPA firm based out of Wisconsin and with multiple locations in Wisconsin will be joining the CLA family as of January 1st. Today I have with me Dan Young, who’s the CEO of Schenck. Dan and I first met each other back in January of this year, so we’ve worked together for about a year, trying to make sure that bringing these two fine organizations together made sense for not only all of the people, but also the clients that we all serve.

So, Dan, welcome to the CLA family, and I’d love for you just to introduce yourself a little bit.

[00:01:42]

Dan: Sure. Hi, Denny. Happy holidays to you, first of all. Yeah, I’ve been with Schenck for about 35, 38 years, something like that. Grew up in Appleton. Have a lovely wife by the name of Karen. We’ve been married a long time, and that’s another story we can share sometime. But I practiced in the area of—before I took this role as CEO—I practiced in the insurance side of things. I was partner in charge of the Green Bay office and was just recently elected, January, to the role of CEO.

And I kinda laugh now that—I tell the folks that this is the shortest tenured CEO president in the history of Schenck. I’ll last one year.

Denny: [laughs] Yes. Let’s go back, actually, Dan, to January of this year and as we carry through ’18, I know that a lot of things we had to work through, and whatever we didn’t see eye-to-eye, you eventually convinced me and I caved, right? That’s what happened through the…

[00:02:41]

Dan: [laughs] I didn’t know that you realized that, but I’m glad you do.

[00:02:48]

Denny: But we obviously made it through that process. Just share with the CLA family a little bit what, really, you’ve gone through in the last year, somewhat emotionally, probably, but also just some of the major milestones that have brought us to where we are today.

[00:03:05]

Dan: Well, when we first met, it was at the major firms group, I believe, back in January. And I think two days before I met with you, I had a crown, a dental crown, put in. And then that didn’t work, and then a day before I met you, I had a root canal, so you met me at my worst. I was in a lot of pain the first day, and just trying to survive that. But once we got beyond that, a couple things that we had to do here when I first took the role as president of Schenck.

[00:03:35]

We wanted to get our deferred comp in line, and we did do that. We acquired a firm in July 1 called Winter, Kloman, Moter, & Repp. It’s a firm in Milwaukee that had about $9 million of revenue, so we closed on that July 1. I believe we started our actual, serious discussions probably sometime in May. So from May until now, we’ve been working diligently together in terms of viewpoints and structure and things like that. And I have to say that’s been a pleasure working with you and the team. Everyone we met has been very, very professional.

[00:04:11]

Denny: And the same on our end, Dan. It’s been an interesting process. For those in the CLA family that are not aware, this would be the largest true acquisition that we’ve ever accomplished, having a firm join us. Roughly 90-some million dollars of revenue represented in the Schenck firm, all joining us into 2019. We also, through this process, have decided to create what we have today is six regions within CLA—we’ve decided to create a seventh region, and that is to take the entire state of Wisconsin,

so that would include our offices on the west side of Wisconsin all the way through to Milwaukee to really be part of one region and referring to, really, One Wisconsin as a seventh region. And Dan will be heading up as the chief practice officer that region as well. Dan, as we look to grow this region, tell us a little bit maybe about some of the specialties of Schenck from an industry and a service perspective that we’ll be folding together and hopefully expanding.

[00:05:25]

Dan: Yeah, so our traditional service lines are, you know, insurance, accounting, and tax. Then we also have specialty services—SALT, we have cost segregation. We do payroll. We have wealth advisory services, investment arms. Missing a few, but on the industry side, we have a number of the same industries you have, from manufacturing and distribution, to hospitality and retail, to government in the public sector, regulated sector, dealerships, [indistinct] processing. So we have a number of similarities, and I think you actually have a technology side of things as well, I believe, as well. So…

[00:06:04]

Denny: Yeah, that’s correct. You know, Dan, as you went through this process and made this decision, obviously the owners of Schenck had to come a decision and a vote of, do they want to move forward with this, and does it really make sense that this combination can be much, much more than one-plus-one for our people and our clients and so forth? Could you tell us a little bit, maybe, as to how that overall vote ended up? And along with the actual vote, could you share with us what you think were the overriding reasons that ultimately the Schenck partner group decided to move forward?

[00:06:44]

Dan: Sure. Let’s start with the reasons why first. When you called and said, “Hey, Dan, are you interested in talking to us?”, and… we’re always interested in talking. And I will admit that initially, it was like, “Well, we’re doing fine. We can grow and be very successful as an independent firm at Schenck.” But as we got to know you a little better and your culture, it was really amazing a lot of the similarities we had within the firms,

from the culture to client base to the Schenck promise—the Schenck WIGs, we call them— wildly important goals to the PW promise. The service integration model—you guys go to market with industry teams. So do we. The client base was very, very similar. We do middle-market, privately held companies. You guys do the same work. Everything kind of lined up.

And the most important thing, I think, was as we got to know the management team of CLA, you know, I trust them. We trust each other, I think. And that’s very important. Our roots are similar in both firms. We’re a Midwestern firm here. You guys, I know you’re—were all over the country, but at the heart, we have the Midwest, and I guess that’s what attracted us, first of all. And then as we started looking at metrics, those also lined up. Then we started looking at, you know, the deal points, and those lined up.

[00:08:13]

And so, that took us from May to probably end of July to get to what I just described. We had our first meeting as a shareholder group. We were, at that point, up until that point, just talking between boards, or select members of the board. You know, August was the first meeting we had. I remember it was August 10th where we got our shareholders together and we talked to them about the CLA opportunity, the One Wisconsin. And a lot of people were surprised, but we took a straw poll: do you guys want us to continue to have further to have further discussions with CLA or not?

‘Cause we’ve been approached before, and we said no. But this one felt really natural. We took that straw poll, and it was 58 to 4. So we proceeded with further discussions until we got to our November 13th annual shareholder meeting where we actually voted. And we had 100% of the votes cast, and 100% of them were in favor. And I don’t know about your firm, but we don’t get too many 100%ers, so it was a—it was a mandate. [laughs] So very good—it was exciting. So…

[00:09:20]

Dan: Yeah. That’s fantastic, and I think it shows a lot of credibility to the Schenck ownership group, not only to stay together as one firm, just like CLA has always tried to do, but to stay together as really one ownership group as well. So that’s very commendable. When we look about going forward, we talk about the industries and the service lines, but also just some of the geographic figures. If you look at kind of the three-state region of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and then further to the east, Illinois, it’s really gonna be a tremendous amount of volume.

Give us a picture, a little bit, of not only the overall size that Wisconsin region will be as CLA, but maybe just identify for us as well some of those specific locations that you have, so that we become familiar with those as well, Dan.

[00:10:15]

Dan: The Schenck firm was about $90 million in revenue in the state of Wisconsin. And I understand that the CLA Wisconsin revenue was about $66 million, so that’s about $156 million of revenue. Over 1,000 team members will be part of the CLA team in Wisconsin. I think I’m going from memory—correct me, Denny—but I think the revenue in Minnesota is about $174 million. And then in Illinois, it’s just shy of $90 million, or maybe it’s $80 million or something like that. So it’s a significant volume.

[00:10:49]

And we already joked that we were gonna catch Minnesota, so [laughs]… in terms of revenue. Well, the challenge is on. But we have, for as far as locations, we have ten or eleven locations, the Schenck firm did. And they were located in—our offices are located in Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Oconomowoc, Brookfield. Moving up on the east side of the lake, you’re gonna have Sheboygan and Manitowoc. And then we have an office in Wasau and a couple smaller satellite offices.

Now, we add that, I think, the CLA locations where we double up our—CLA has an office in Oshkosh; so do we. CLA has an office in Sheboygan; so do we. I think you’re in Marshfield and Stevens Point, which is close to our Wasau office. Out west, we have Eau Claire, Rice Lake, Hudson—just going from memory—La Crosse, Tomah—I’m missing a couple—La Crosse. So I think we’re gonna have like 18 different locations within the one-Wisconsin region, so.

[00:11:57]

Denny: And, you know, one of the largest metropolitan areas, obviously, in Wisconsin, being Milwaukee. When we combine those two locations, Dan, am I right that that’s gonna be probably the largest—we’ll go CPA practice, but CPA practice in the Milwaukee area?

[00:12:18]

Dan: Yeah. I don’t know exactly what your revenue is in Milwaukee and Racine. Our revenue is about $20 million. Are you about $25 million?

[00:12:28]

Denny: I think that’s close. I think that’s close to correct.

[00:12:31]

Dan: Yeah, so I think that whole region, southeast Wisconsin, whatever we’re gonna call it, is about $55 million. And then we’re really excited about the fact that you have a location in Madison. And so, and our Oconomowoc office is just right in between those two locations. So we’re gonna be a force in that southern part of the state.

[00:12:53]

Denny: Well, I know everyone is, again, extremely excited about this happening. I hope that this podcast will reach, also, even though it’s still gonna be in December—reaches the wonderful Schenck employees in the group. And to that group, specifically, I know there’s gonna be an integration process, and there’s gonna be an integration process for everyone in Wisconsin as we form this new region and operate it to grow it and fulfill the careers, the inspired careers, for our people as well develop those opportunities for our clients.

I’m hoping it won’t be as painful as Dan’s root canal, but it is something that clearly takes work and effort. For everyone within CLA currently that’s gonna be helping with this transition and getting actively involved in trying to help this be as smooth as possible, as well as all of the Schenck individuals that’ll be going through these transitions, I just want to thank you ahead of time for all of that work and effort. And I do know that long-term, this will create tremendous amount of opportunities for all of us, not only in our communities, but for our careers and for the clients that we serve.

So thank you very, very much on behalf of both Dan and myself. Have a wonderful rest of December.

[00:14:19]

Dan: Happy holidays, everyone.

<end>

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